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Jimmy Bunn 
Stories 


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Old Mr. Wolf didn’t like the water 


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Jimmy Bunn 
Stories 


By 

Henry Cragin Walker 


With Illustrations 
By Hope-Innes 



New York 
The Century Co. 



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Copyright, 1920, by 
The Century Co. 


OCT -5 1920 ‘ 


hco V 

©CU597657 


To 

EVERY KIDDIE IN THE LAND 

WHO LOVES THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE AND ANIMALS 
AND BIRDS AND FLOWERS AND TREES AND LAKES 
AND RIVERS AND FRIENDLY LITTLE BROOKS, 

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED 







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INTRODUCTION 


A long, long time ago, when the lamp 
had been lit in the cozy living-room be- 
fore bed-time, the author of these stories 
used to relate the adventures of Jimmy 
Bunn to his children. 

They, and sometimes some of the 
neighbors’ children, used to crowd in on 
the big soft couch before the fireplace 
and, tucking their nighties over their 
pink toes, listen with eager eyes and ears. 

He never had any idea at that time of 
putting them into print, but after his 
children had grown up and had children 
of their own, they remembered the 
Jimmy Bunn stories and the author 
found that he often had to tell them all 

vii 


viii INTRODUCTION 

over again, and after a while a publisher 
thought there were a great many other 
small youngsters who would enjoy them 
too, so here they are. 

The story-teller makes no claim for 
great originality and grown-up folks 
may occasionally discern some similar- 
ity between Jimmy Bunn’s adventures 
and those which occur in some of the 
old classics and the fairy stories of long 
ago. 

The author will make no apology for 
this, for he remembers hearing that even 
Shakspere borrowed his plots from other 
story-tellers; and after all, as Solomon 
says, “there is nothing new under the 
sun.” 

Of course we may perhaps admit that 
very few of these adventures could really 
have taken place, but what of that? 
After all, is n’t it the things which 


INTRODUCTION ix 

could n’t ever happen that interest most 
of us? 

Right here I hear a little voice ask, 
“But, Mother, how could Jimmy Bunn 
p-o-s-s-i-b-l-y do the things he did?” 
And perhaps the reply; “Well, you 
know, dearie, being a rabbit, may be he 
couldn’t. Of course they are ‘make- 
believe’ stories.” After which there is 
a general nodding of heads and snug- 
gling by the audience. 

If the tales succeed in pleasing other 
small audiences, the author will feel very 
glad indeed, because he realizes that 
story-telling is perhaps the oldest form 
of amusement in all the world — hark- 
ing away back to thousands of years ago, 
long before “movies” were even dreamed 
of, or printing-presses had been in- 
vented. 

Should these stories receive one half 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


the favor they did in those long-ago eve- 
nings, before the old fireplace, he will 
feel more than repaid for having under- 
taken the happy task of preparing them 
for the printer. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Jimmy Bunn and the Shadow . . 3 

Inside the Log 13 

Jimmy Bunn and the Stranger . . 26 

Jimmy Bunn Visits the Green Hill 38 
Mister Wolf Is Locked Up . . .50 

How Mister Wolf Was Found Out . 62 

Jimmy Bunn and the Wild Geese . 77 

Jimmy Bunn’s Big Joke .... 91 
Peter Porcupine’s Adventure . . .108 

Jimmy Bunn Meets Greeny the Frog 124 
Jimmy Bunn and the Tortoise . . 140 

The Adventure of Connie Coon . .155 

The Burning of Farmer Johnson’s 
Haystack 170 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Old Mr. Wolf did n’t like the water 

Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Clearly there was something wrong . . 7 

Out popped his nose into the night . . 23 

You see that big chestnut tree • • • 33 

Mr. Wolf looked very sheepish • . • 73 

Splash, splash, ker-splash went the wild 

geese 87 

Then there was a great noise .... 103 

Fastened one end right under the limb 

where Peter Porcupine sat . . .119 

^‘Je-ru-sa-lem!” 137 

“Mercy on us!” thought Jimmy, “this is 

certainly the king of turtles” . . 143 

“I ’ve been in a menagerie” . . . .159 

Thinking of all the fun he was going to 
have 175 











JIMMY BUNN STORIES 


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JIMMY BUNN 


JIMMY BUNN AND THE 
SHADOW 

O NCE upon a time Jimmy Bunn 
— but goodness, gracious! I 
haven’t yet told you who Jimmy Bunn 
was! 

Jimmy Bunn was just the wisest, whit- 
est, cutest rabbit in all the world. 

Of course he had long ears and just 
a stub of a wee little tail. In fact this 
tail of his was so short and so stubby that 
you could scarcely see it unless you 
looked very, very sharp. 

Jimmy Bunn was n’t proud of his tail 
at all. To tell the truth, he was rather 
ashamed of it, it was terribly short. It 


4 JIMMY BUNN STORIES : 

was like the end of your lead pencil after 
you have written and written and whit- 
tled and whittled it away down to almost 
nothing at all. 

Old Mr. Owl, who you know is just 
the knowingest bird that ever was, said — 
at least folks said he said — that Jimmy 
Bunn’s tail was worn down so small be- 
cause he was in-quis-i-tive. 

In-quis-i-tive means that you always 
want to find out all about everything you 
see, and, to begin all over again, Mr. 
Owl said that Jimmy Bunn’s tail was 
short because, being in-quis-i-tive, he 
always sat up on his hind legs and looked 
all around. And this, you know — or so 
Mr. Owl said — wore his tail down until, 
as a tail, it was n’t of much use. 

Perhaps Mr. Owl was right, but none 
of the other animals believed it. Be- 
cause, you see, nobody — not even 


THE SHADOW 5 

Tommy Tortoise himself, who had 
lived for pretty nearly one hundred 
years— remembered that Jimmy Bunn’s 
tail had ever been even one teeny, weeny 
bit longer than it is to-day. 

Well, anyway, Jimmy Bunn was walk- 
ing about (you know he does sometimes 
walk, when he is n’t in a great hurry) 
and sticking his little pink nose into 
bunches of sweet clover. 

Maybe he was looking for a clover 
with four leaves, but I don’t think so. 
He did n’t care much about four- 
leaved clovers, at least while there were 
plenty of three-\&2cvtd ones about. 

You see, Jimmy was eating his break- 
fast. He would choose a nice long, fat 
clover stem and then bite it off very near 
the ground and slowly eat it right up to 
its three leaves, saving the best for the 
last, just as at dinner you have to wait 


6 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

for your piece of cake until you Ve 
eaten every last bit of what has gone be- 
fore. 

All this time Jimmy’s long, white, 
pink-lined ears lay flat along his back. 
But all of a sudden they stood straight 
in the air, his nose began to wrinkle, and 
he sat right up on his hind legs and 
looked around, the stem of his last clover 
still sticking out of the corner of his 
mouth, although he had stopped chew- 
ing it. 

Jimmy had heard something, and it 
was something he did n’t like. 

Presently he thumped his hind feet 
hard on the ground in disapproval. 
And then he saw — well, what do you 
think? 

He saw a dark shadow come slowly 
stealing across his sweet-clover patch 
and there were no fleecy little clouds in 



Clearly there was something wrong 


O'* 








THE SHADOW 


9 

that bright blue sky overhead to make 
that shadow. 

Clearly there was something wrong. 

Now, when Jimmy Bunn thinks there 
is something wrong he never stops to 
argue about it. He always makes up 
his mind very quickly. 

He forgot all about that sweet-clover 
patch and down he came on all four feet 
again and began to run. 

My, how he ran ! His long hind legs 
worked like a green grasshopper’s, only 
a great deal faster than the legs of any 
green grasshopper you have ever seen. 

He never looked behind him. If he 
had, he would have seen — oh, gracious ! 
what do you suppose he would have 
seen? 

He would have seen the owner of that 
shadow which had suddenly come over 
the sweet-clover patch, and the owner of 


lo JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

that shadow was running behind him 
just a little bit faster than Jimmy. 

The owner of that shadow could n’t 
make his legs work so fast as Jimmy 
Bunn’s ; but, you see, each jump he made 
was a great deal longer than Jimmy’s 
jump. 

The owner of the shadow was big and 
shaggy. He had a long bushy tail and a 
long thin nose and a big mouth with a 
red tongue hanging out of the middle 
of it. 

I think it was lucky for Jimmy that he 
couldn’t look around; for if he had 
looked, the sight of the shadow’s owner 
would have frightened him to death 
right then and there. 

It was also lucky for Jimmy that he 
had gone to bed early the night before 
and had had a long night’s rest. If he 
had sat up as he wanted to, after his 


THE SHADOW 


1 1 

mother had told him to go to bed, you 
see he would have been all tired out and 
the shadow’s owner would have caught 
him in seven jumps. 

Now, Jimmy’s house was still a long 
way off and he just knew he would n’t 
have time to get to it before the shadow’s 
owner caught him. But suddenly he 
saw, right ahead of him, a big, long, hol- 
low tree lying on the ground with one 
end open. 

Oh, if only his long hind legs would 
keep on jumping ! 

Would they? Yes, they would. 
One, two, three more jumps and snoop! 
went Jimmy out of sight into that hole in 
the log and slam! went the shadow’s 
owner in too ; but only up to his shoul- 
ders, for the hole was n’t big enough for 
him to go any further. 

Away into the middle of the log went 


12 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Jimmy. And then — well, he just 
couldn’t help it — he suddenly faced 
about and looked back. 

He could n’t see a thing, but he could 
hear — yes, indeed he could hear! He 
heard a growling and a coughing and a 
sneezing, for the end of the log was full 
of old sawdusty wood where the bugs 
had eaten it and the shadow’s owner had 
got a lot of the dust up his nose. 

Then suddenly the shadow’s owner 
backed out and in crept a little of the 
bright sunshine and Jimmy Bunn could 
see who it was that owned that shadow. 

It was Mr. Wolf. 


INSIDE THE LOG 


I T was very, very dark indeed inside 
the log where Jimmy Bunn had run 
to get away from Mr. Wolf and his gray 
shadow. 

Of course at the open end, where the 
sunlight shone, it was very bright, but 
away back in the middle, where Jimmy 
Bunn sat shivering, it was as dark as 
your bedroom is at night when Mother 
has put out the light and you pull the 
clothes over your head. 

Jimmy couldn’t see Mr. Wolf; not 
even his gray shadow was in sight. But 
Jimmy somehow had the feeling that Mr. 
Wolf was not very far away. 

Then suddenly he began to shake all 
over again, for he heard footsteps right 


13 


14 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

over his head. Mr. Wolf \vas running 
over that hollow tree and looking to see 
if there were any skylights on top. 

But the old tree was still covered with 
strong rough bark and there was no hole 
at the back, either, because that was the 
top end, where the tree was very, very 
small. 

So Mr. Wolf came back and looked 
into the hole again and although he 
couldn’t see Jimmy Bunn, because it 
was very, very dark inside, he just knew 
he was there, so he said : 

“Gr-r-r-r! maybe I can’t get in, but 
never mind. You can’t possibly get out 
and after a while you will be hungry and 
you ’ll have to come out and then — ” 

Well, then Mr. Wolf gave a great 
laugh. And, just to show Jimmy Bunn 
what he might expect, he snapped his 
teeth together and made a noise such as 


INSIDE THE LOG 15 

you make when you crack nuts with a 
nut-cracker, and he made an awful face 
in the hole, hoping that Jimmy Bunn 
would see it and it would frighten him. 
And Jimmy Bunn did see it and it made 
him tremble even harder than ever. 

Oh! is n’t Mr. Wolf a terrible old fel- 
low? 

By and by the sunshine at the end of 
the hole went away, and then the even- 
ing shadows began to fall, and then it 
began to be almost as dark outside the 
hole in the log as it was inside where 
Jimmy Bunn sat shivering. 

Jimmy Bunn could n’t hear Mr. Wolf 
at all now, but he knew he had n’t gone 
away, for he remembered what his 
mother had told him about Mr. Wolf 
never, never giving up when he had 
once started out to catch anybody. 

That is one really good habit of Mr. 


i6 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Wolf’s, bad as he is; when he starts out 
to do anything, no matter what it is, he 
always sticks to it until he finishes it. 

After the sun had gone away down 
behind the far-away hills it got as dark 
as night and the frogs began to croak 
and away off in the thick woods Jimmy 
Bunn could hear a whip-poor-will call. 

Have you ever heard a whip-poor- 
will? A whip-poor-will is a bird that 
begins to call when darkness comes and 
it sounds exactly as if some one was 
crying, “Whip-poor-will ! Whip-poor- 
will!” 

It ’s a very, very lonesome sound in- 
deed, and poor Jimmy Bunn thought 
about his home and wondered what his 
mother was doing. How anxious she 
must be about her son Jimmy! 

He thought a lot about his warm, 
cheerful home in the ground, all lined 


INSIDE THE LOG 17 

with dried grass and pieces of fur that 
his mother had pulled off her own breast 
to make his bed comfortable when he 
was very young. And, yes, sometimes 
she had pulled some off Jimmy Bunn’s 
father’s fur coat and made him very 
angry so that he had thumped his hind 
feet and said things which were not at 
all nice. 

You see, when you think you have 
lost anything you feel very badly about 
it and you ap-pre-ci-ate all the more hav- 
ing had it. 

Just when it had got terribly dark, 
Jimmy Bunn had another very bad 
fright, for suddenly he heard Mr. Wolf 
give a long, long howl. 

You see, Mr. Wolf had grown even 
more hungry than he was before. It 
made his hunger greater to know that 
a good dinner was so near and just 


i8 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

out of his reach in that hollow log. 

He felt just the way you feel when you 
are hungry and through a store window 
you see a lot of good things to eat. 

But that was n’t what made him howl. 
He was really howling for Mrs. Wolf. 

He knew Jimmy would have to come 
out sometime, so he thought that if he 
could call Mrs. Wolf she could come 
and sit down before that hole and wait 
for Jimmy Bunn, while he (Mr. Wolf) 
went home and got a bite to eat before 
he made his big meal of Jimmy Bunn. 

So after a while Mrs. Wolf heard Mr. 
Wolf calling and she answered him and 
finally crept out of the woods herself, 
like another gray shadow in the star- 
light. 

“Jimmy Bunn is in that old log,” said 
Mr. Wolf to Mrs. Wolf, “and if we are 
patient we shall finally eat him. I am 


INSIDE THE LOG 


19 


going home for a bite to eat, but I ’ll 
be back pretty soon. You watch till 
then.” And he trotted off. 

Of course Jimmy Bunn did n’t know 
about Mr. Wolf’s plan, but one thing he 
did know. He was very, very hungry, 
for he had been in that log nearly all 
day without one bit of food. 

My, how hungry he was and how he 
did want to go home ! 

Now, you know when you just have 
to do a thing, you usually do it, so 
although Jimmy Bunn didn’t at all be- 
lieve there was anything good to eat in 
that old log, he began to hunt around 
just the same. 

He went from one end to the other, 
going just as near the open hole as he 
dared and sniffing about on every side, 
when all of a sudden, what do you sup- 
pose he found? 


20 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

He found a patch of soft moss right 
under his feet. 

Of course moss is n’t much like sweet 
clover, but Jimmy Bunn scratched at it 
with his sharp toe-nails and kept push- 
ing his nose into it until — well, what do 
you think? 

His pink nose went right straight 
through that patch of moss into the soft 
earth. 

You see, it was this way. 

Old Bushy Tail, the gray squirrel, 
used to have his home in that old tree 
before it had been blown down by the 
great wind. 

Yes, he had his home there, going in 
and out through a big hole in the trunk. 
And when his old home fell down, that 
hole lay right against the ground and 
Jimmy Bunn was really looking right 
out of Bushy Tail’s old front door. 


INSIDE THE LOG 


21 


My! what a big thump Jimmy Bunn’s 
heart gave ! 

Here was his chance, after all. 

He did n’t wait a second. He began 
to dig, and how he did make the dirt fly. 

You see, Jimmy Bunn was used to 
digging holes. He had often dug them 
for fun and now he was digging for life; 
yes, he was. 

He dug and dug and dug, while Mrs. 
Wolf waited outside without having the 
least idea what Jimmy Bunn was about. 

He dug and dug and dug, being care- 
ful to dig away from the end where Mrs. 
Wolf waited. 

The hours went by and old Mr. Wolf 
came back to take his turn at watching, 
and still Jimmy Bunn made the dirt fly 
down underneath that old log. 

By and by, when he thought it safe, 
he began to dig up, and then — oh, joy ! — 


22 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

he saw a little bright star shining right 
over his head and out popped his nose 
into the night. 

He looked about with great care. 
He could n’t see Mr. and Mrs. Wolf, but 
he guessed they were there all right at 
the other end of that log. 

Then he pushed a little harder, but 
very, very softly, and out he came on the 
soft pine-needles. 

My, how he did run ! Yes indeed he 
did! Very softly at first and then faster 
and faster, although his front paws were, 
oh ! so tired with digging ! 

He never stopped until he had run 
right into his own house and into the 
arms of his mother, who was waiting for 
him, you may be sure. 

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INSIDE THE LOG 25 

hole all through the next day and then 
they got mad and went home. 

They made up their minds that Jimmy 
Bunn was dead, anyway, and Mrs. Wolf 
said she believed her husband had fright- 
ened him to death by howling so loud. 


JIMMY BUNN AND THE 
STRANGER 


J IMMY BUNN had been eating 
green apples. 

His mother had told him not to, but 
Jimmy had eaten them just the same, 
and he had waked up in the night with 
an awful pain in his stomach. 

He just could n’t sleep any more, so 
he crept very carefully past the bed 
where his mother and father were sleep- 
ing, and he crept very carefully by the 
nursery where his brothers and sisters 
were sleeping, and so out to the door of 
his house in the hillside. 

He sat up and blinked his eyes when 
he got to that door and looked out, for 
round-faced Silver Moon was shining 

26 


THE STRANGER 


27 

brightly in the sky. Jimmy had never 
seen him look so big and white. 

He almost forgot about his stomach- 
ache as he gazed at Silver Moon and 
at the trees and the grass and the hills 
and the Big Pond. 

How still everything was! And the 
light from Silver Moon was wonder- 
ful, it was so soft. 

It made the Big Pond look like a great, 
round dish filled with the clear syrup 
which Jimmie’s mother gave him for his 
breakfast cakes when he was a good rab- 
bit. 

It looked so much like it that Jimmy 
could hardly believe it was n’t and 
wanted to go over and make. sure. 

Jimmy was very fond of syrup. 

He knew he ought n’t to go to the Big 
Pond, but he might never have another 
chance. Y ou know it ’s very hard some- 


28 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

times not to do the things one should n’t. 
And so Jimmy could n’t resist the temp- 
tation and he decided to hop over to the 
Big Pond. 

It was such a very little way to go and 
he felt sure everybody but himself was 
sound asleep. 

There was a corn-field near the pond 
and just as Jimmy was passing it he got 
an awful fright, for suddenly he heard 
some one say, “Hello, Jimmy,’’ in a very 
strange voice. 

He looked around quickly and there 
was the funniest-looking stranger he had 
ever seen. 

At first he thought it was Mr. Wolf, 
for in the moonlight the stranger looked 
almost as big as gray Mr. Wolf looked. 

Then Jimmy saw that he was not gray, 
after all, but yellow and black, with a 
very big, bushy yellow tail that had wide 


THE STRANGER 


29 

black rings around it. He had little 
pointed ears and a very sharp nose and 
round eyes and such a comical expres- 
sion that it made Jimmy want to laugh. 

“Well,” said Jimmy in amazement, 
forgetting all about his stomach-ache, 
“who in goodness’ name are you?” 

“Me?” said the stranger, smiling a 
little, Jimmy thought. “Why, I ’m 
Connie Coon.” 

“Do you live near here?” asked 
Jimmy, in a very polite voice, for he felt 
as though he ought to say something. 

“Yes, in the woods over there the other 
side of the Big Pond,” said Connie. 

“You see, I don’t go out much in the 
daytime because I sleep a good deal then. 
And, besides, I ’m afraid to be out in the 
daytime.” 

“Are you afraid of Mr. Wolf?” said 
Jimmy, shivering a little at the name. 


30 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

“Humph ! not much,” replied Connie, 
opening his mouth and showing two 
rows of sharp white teeth. “And look 
at these.” He held up a paw and J immy 
saw some very long, pointed yellow 
claws at the end of it. 

“Mr. Wolf would better not meddle 
with me,” Connie said, grinning. “I 
can fight when I want to.” 

“Crickity!” said Jimmy, ad-mir- 
ing-ly, “I suppose you are n’t afraid of 
anybody.” 

“Yes, I am,” replied Connie, ear- 
nestly. “I ’m afraid of several things. 
I ’m afraid of men and guns and dogs.” 

“Do the men and dogs chase you?” 
said Jimmy, beginning by this time to 
feel well acquainted. 

“Indeed they do!” said Connie. 
“You see, I have a pretty handsome coat, 
if I do say so myself. It ’s a very warm 


THE STRANGER 


31 


one, too, when it ’s fine and thick in the 
winter. And men, you know, are some- 
times very cold in winter.” 

“What has that to do with it?” asked 
Jimmy, interrupting, which was of 
course not polite. 

Connie grinned again. 

“Seems to me you are n’t very sharp,” 
he replied. “Why, the men want this 
coat of mine and the coats of my brothers 
and sisters! They sew them together 
and make coats for themselves. That ’s 
why I don’t like to come out in the day- 
time. Besides, I can see very well at 
night, almost as well as old Mr. Owl can. 

“I can climb trees, too. You see that 
big chestnut tree over there? Well, I 
can climb it like — What’s that?” 

Jimmy listened. Over on the other 
side of the Big Pond he heard the bark- 
ing of a dog. 


32 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Connie Coon turned around like a 
flash and as though to show Jimmy that 
he had n’t been bragging, he ran toward 
the big chestnut tree. Springing up on 
the trunk, he scrambled up among the 
branches, out of sight, without even say- 
ing good-by. 

Jimmy turned and ran, too. He 
didn’t like dogs, either. It was only a 
few jumps to his hole and just as he was 
about to run in out of sight he stopped 
and turned around. He wanted to see 
what would become of Connie Coon. 

He heard the dog coming nearer and 
he could see a light among the trees and 
hear men talking. 

By and by he saw them coming out 
into the moonlight. The dog was run- 
ning along with his nose to the ground, 
and the men were a short distance be- 
hind him. 



You see that big chestnut tree 








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THE STRANGER 


35 

Soon they came to the chestnut tree 
which Connie Coon had climbed and the 
dog lifted up his nose and barked very 
loud. 

Then one of the men took some funny- 
looking iron things, like the spurs on a 
big rooster, out of a bag and strapped 
them on his legs. They were climbing- 
irons, but Jimmy Bunn did n’t know that 
and then the man put his arms around 
the tree and started to shin up. 

“Poor, poor Connie Coon!” thought 
Jimmy. 

The big silver moon still lighted up 
the meadows and the trees and Jimmy 
could see everything except Connie 
Coon. 

“Dear me!” said he to himself. “I 
wish that old silver moon were n’t there. 
Then they could n’t find Connie.” 

By and by the man had climbed away 


36 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

up in the tree and then he crawled out on 
a limb and began to shake it very hard. 

It was the limb where Connie Coon 
was trying to hide and clinging on for 
dear life. 

The man shook it and shook it, and 
the dog barked. The other men, as 
Jimmy could see in the moonlight, car- 
ried long sticks. They were waiting for 
Connie Coon to fall out of the tree. 

And pretty soon he did. 

He just could n’t hold on any longer. 

Down he came, all rolled up like a 
ball, and lit right on top of that barking 
dog. 

T hen there was a terrible noise ! 

Those long teeth and yellow claws, 
which Connie Coon had shown Jimmy 
Bunn, began to bite and scratch like 
everything. 

Oh, how that dog did yelp ! And the 


THE STRANGER 


37 

men, in trying to hit Connie Coon, hit 
the dog instead. And how the hair did 
fly! 

By this time Jimmy Bunn had forgot- 
ten all about the pain in his stomach. 
All he thought about was that fight over 
there by the Big Pond. 

Then when his eyes began to ache with 
looking so hard he suddenly saw Connie 
Coon break loose from the dog and the 
men and, running as tight as he could 
go, disappear in the woods. 

The dog tried to follow Connie, but 
he limped and held up one foot. 

“My gracious!” said Jimmy Bunn to 
himself as he nodded good night to 
Silver Moon and ran back to his bed, 
“My gracious! I like that Connie Coon 
fellow ! And how he can fight ! I be- 
lieve he will wear that fine, handsome 
coat of his all winter long, himself.” 


JIMMY BUNNY VISITS THE 
GREEN HILL 


A way back of Farmer Johnson’s 
farm there is a lovely Green Hill. 
It rises in a gentle slope from behind 
the Big Pond and stretches up, up, up, 
so that the top looks as though it touched 
the sky. 

And Jimmy Bunn, sitting before his 
home on summer evenings, often won- 
dered if it really did. 

It was behind this Green Hill that 
the sun went to rest every night. And 
sometimes, earlier in the day, when there 
had been a gentle shower and his rays 
shone brightly, Jimmy could see a won- 
derful rainbow, curved across the sky, 
one end of which swept gracefully 

38 


THE GREEN HILL 


39 


down, down, down, till it disappeared 
behind the Green Hill. 

Very often, when the sun had gone to 
rest behind the Green Hill, Jimmy 
could see beautiful red and blue and 
gold colors flaming in the sky. And, 
remembering how that sky had looked 
one night when Farmer Johnson’s big 
haystack burned up (I am going to tell 
you that story some day), Jimmy won- 
dered if those brilliant lights came from 
a great fire burning there. 

Surely there were great sights to be 
seen the other side of that Green Hill ! 

“If only it were not such a long way 
off,’’ thought Jimmy, “I would go there 
and see for myself.’’ 

Now, when one wants very much to 
do a thing, and keeps thinking about it 
every day, one generally resolves to do 
it. That is why we should always be 


40 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

careful to think only about those things 
which it is right for us to do. 

Yes, Jimmy wanted very much to see 
what was behind that far-away hill, and 
so one day, without saying a word to 
anybody, he resolved to start on the 
journey. 

So first he ate all the sweet clover he 
could hold, because, he told himself, he 
might not find any more till he got back. 
Still, I suspect he would have eaten a 
good deal if he had nt been going, don’t 
you? 

Then he looked all around to see if 
anybody was watching him. But there 
was n’t a soul in sight, so off he started. 

He crawled through the wire fence 
around Farmer Johnson’s house and he 
climbed over the big stone wall beyond, 
and then he hopped as fast as he could 
go right toward the Green Hill. 


THE GREEN HILL 


41 

It was a good deal farther off, even, 
than Jimmy had thought, but he kept 
right on hopping, because you know, if 
one is really going to do a thing, the only 
way is to keep at it. And by and by, 
after what seemed a long, long time, he 
found himself right in the middle of the 
green slope, and then finally, when it 
was long after noon time, he arrived 
right on the very tip-top. 

He was pretty much out of breath by 
then, so he rested a bit and sat up 
straight on his hind legs to look around. 

And what do you suppose he saw? 

Why, nothing but a lot more hills and 
a lot bigger hills, while away off, miles 
and miles, and miles, was a hill so big 
that Jimmy knew it must be a moun- 
tain. 

“Goodness,” thought Jimmy, “but life 
is a funny thing! Just when you begin 


42 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

to think you have found out all about 
everything, there are always a great 
many bigger things coming along to 
find out about.” 

And just at that moment he heard 
footsteps behind him. 

Around he jumped, quick as light- 
ning, for he thought it might be Mr. 
Wolf, and there, only a few steps off, was 
Short Horns, Farmer Johnson’s big red 
bull. 

“Gracious!” said Jimmy; “you scared 
me ’most to death. What are you doing 
up here?” 

Short Horns laughed. 

“What are you doing here, yourself?” 
he said. “Did n’t you know this is 
my pasture? I ’m up here for a few 
weeks’ vacation. My wife and two 
children are over there behind that gray 
rock.” 


THE GREEN HILL 


43 

“I thought you always lived in Farmer 
Johnson’s barn,” said Jimmy. 

“Well, I thought you lived in your 
house in the hillside,” replied Short 
Horns. “Perhaps you ’ve come to 
make us a visit.” 

“No,” said Jimmy, “but of course 
I ’m very glad indeed to see you,” he 
added politely, for J immy had been very 
well brought up, although he did some- 
times ask too many questions. He 
wanted to ask one now, even if it was n’t 
so very polite, so he said : 

“Why do you wear that ring in your 
nose. Short Horns?” 

Now, that ring in the bull’s nose 
had been put there by Farmer Johnson 
because Short Horns sometimes had 
very bad fits of temper and, his nose be- 
ing very tender. Farmer Johnson could 
pull on that ring and make him mind. 


44 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Perhaps Short Horns thought a good 
many folks ought sometimes to wear 
rings in their noses to help make them 
mind, but he did n’t say so. 

He said instead: “Oh, all bulls wear 
rings in their noses, you know, just as 
some persons wear them on their fing- 
ers.” 

Of course, this was n’t ex-act-ly an- 
swering Jimmy’s question, but, you see. 
Short Horns was just a little bit ashamed 
of that bad temper of his and did n’t like 
to refer to it. Then he said, perhaps to 
change the subject, “It ’s a nice view 
from here, is n’t it?” 

“It certainly is,” replied Jimmy. “I 
thought when I started that maybe I 
could see the whole world from the top 
of this hill.” 

“Pooh, pooh!” said Short Horns. 
“This world is a very large place.” 


THE GREEN HILL 


45 

“Can you see the end of the rainbow 
from here?” asked Jimmy, to conceal 
his disappointment. 

“No indeed,” said Short Horns. “I 
suppose it hasn’t any end. Maybe it 
goes all around the world and meets it- 
self again, like the ring in my nose.” 

“But what ’s it for?” asked Jimmy. 

“Well, to be honest, I really don’t 
know,” said Short Horns, “but I ’m told 
there ’s a reason given for it somewhere. 
It ’s something about a promise and has 
to do with a great flood that happened 
thousands of years ago. Perhaps your 
mother can tell you about that.” 

“I thought the sun went to bed the 
other side of this hill,” said Jimmy. 
“Does he?” 

“Of course not,” said Short Horns. 
“He does n’t even go to bed behind that 
big mountain over there, but from here 


46 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

it looks as though he did. As a matter 
of fact, he does n’t go to rest at all. He 
just stays there and keeps on shining all 
the time, and as this round world of ours 
is always turning over backwards, it 
looks as though the sun were going 
down behind the mountain. 

“You see,” continued Short Horns, 
“it won’t be very long now before he 
does disappear for the day. It ’s already 
getting pretty late. I don’t believe,” he 
added, “that you will be able to get home 
before dark. And you know,” — here 
he looked at Jimmy very seriously — 
“Mr. Wolf sometimes hunts on this hill 
at night.” 

“Oh, dear me!” said Jimmy, shiver- 
ing. “I had n’t thought of that. What- 
ever am I going to do?” 

“Well,” said Short Horns, “you seem 
to be a pretty good sort of chap. If you 


THE GREEN HILL 


47 

like you can stay right here all night 
with me. There are several of us up 
here. We all lie around on the grass in 
a circle at night, with the baby calves in 
the middle, so as to keep them out of 
danger.” 

Jimmy looked back the way he had 
come. 

It was certainly growing late. 

Already long dark shadows were 
creeping up from the valley and the 
woods below looked purple against the 
sky. 

The evening wind was beginning to 
blow; Jimmy coud see the hemlock 
boughs trembling. And off in the dis- 
tance the Frog family were starting 
their evening chorus. 

He had never spent a whole night 
away from home in his life and he knew 
his mother would be terribly worried. 


48 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

But even that was better than to be 
caught by Mr. Wolf. 

So he looked at his friend and nodded 
his head. 

“I ’ll be glad to stay if you will let 
me,” he said. “Thank you very much.” 

“Very well, then,” replied Short 
Horns, “follow me.” And he started 
for the big Gray Rock with Jimmy close 
beside him. 

When Jimmy got there he saw several 
cows and two dear little bossies with 
slender legs and big round eyes and long 
stringy tails. 

They all looked at Jimmy and then 
Short Horns introduced him to every 
one. And by and by they all lay down 
on the grass in a circle, as Short Horns 
had said they would. 

Jimmy Bunn nestled up as close as 
he could to one of the calves and ate a lit- 


THE GREEN HILL 49 

tie bunch of red clover he found grow- 
ing there. 

“Are n’t you afraid?” he said to his 
little neighbor, as he stretched out his 
tired legs before going to sleep. 

“No indeed!” replied Bossy, “not 
with my mother and father on guard. 
Nobody woud dare touch us with thdn 
around.” 

It was very, very dark by now, so 
Jimmy lay down in the bunch of red 
clover and looked up at the bright and 
twinkling little stars away off in the dark 
blue sky overhead. And almost before 
he knew it he was sound asleep. 


MISTER WOLF IS LOCKED UP 


OU remember Jimmy Bunn had 



A lain down to sleep beside Bossy the 
calf on the top of the Green Hill. 

He was very tired after his long jour- 
ney and he slept soundly. 

But soon after midnight he was sud- 
denly awakened by a big splash of water 
on the tip end of his nose and he sat right 
up in a hurry. 

It was so dark he couldn’t see a 
thing, but another big splash struck on 
his ear and ran down into its pink inside 
and made him scratch it. 

And just then, right at the moment 
when he was scratching that pink ear, 
there came a tre-men-dous flash of light. 

For a second it seemed to Jimmy as 
though it were daytime, for he could see 


MISTER WOLF IS LOCKED UP 51 

the Gray Rock and the cows and the 
calves and old Short Horns as plainly as 
anything. And then the light went out 
again and there came a crash of thunder 
and it seemed to Jimmy as though it had 
split that old hill right down the middle. 

Then, before poor Jimmy Bunn could 
even think, there came another flash of 
light and another awful crash of thunder 
and he thought that the end of the world 
had come at last. 

All the cows and the calves and Short 
Horns got up on their feet and began to 
run and Jimmy began to run too, al- 
though in the dark he hadn’t the least 
notion where he was going. 

Great big drops of rain were every- 
where beginning to fall and every few 
seconds the lightning zigzagged in a 
long line of white flame against the big 
black mountain in the distance. 


52 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Jimmy was so scared that he ran and 
ran and ran and by and by he bumped — 
bang ! — right into something hard and it 
hurt his head so very much that he saw 
stars. 

Then, the lightning came again and 
he found that the thing he had run into 
was an old shed Farmer Johnson had 
long ago built on the top of that hill, and 
in one second there came still another 
flash of lightning and Jimmy saw an old 
doorway and in he dodged as fast as he 
could jump. 

It was dark as pitch inside and the rain 
was coming down so hard on the old tin 
roof that it sounded like a million bass 
drums all being beaten at once. 

Of course Jimmy Bunn was a very 
brave rabbit. If he had n’t been he cer- 
tainly would have died of fright right 


MISTER WOLF IS LOCKED UP 53 

there in that old shed on the hilltop, for 
nobody, I think, has ever seen such a 
terrible storm as this one. 

By and by Jimmy reached out and 
closed the door. He just could n’t stand 
looking at the lightning any more. 
Then he Avent away back in a corner and 
sat down again. 

Little rivers of rain water were by now 
running down the hill and some of them 
ran in under the side of the old shed and 
soon Jimmy’s feet were as wet as sop and 
he was cold and lonely and very mis-er-a- 
ble. 

And my goodness ! how the wind did 
howl ! 

But after a while it did n’t rain quite 
so hard and Jimmy was beginning to 
feel better, when all at once he heard the 
old door squeak on its hinges as though 


54 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

somebody outside was trying to open it. 

Jimmy shivered and this time it was n’t 
because of the cold. 

Who was trying to open that door? 

Then there came another squeak and 
Jimmy felt a breath of cold air blowing 
on his face. Whoever it was that had 
been trying that door, had at last opened 
it. 

Then Jimmy heard some one come in 
very softly and begin to move around in 
the dark. 

Jimmy did n’t dare speak. He did n’t 
even dare move. He hardly dared 
breathe. 

He listened and listened, but he 
could n’t hear another thing to save his 
life. 

By and by Jimmy began to think of 
what he could do. 

He was n’t sure it was an enemy 


MISTER WOLF IS LOCKED UP 55 

that had come in at that door, but he 
could n’t be sure it was n’t either. 

“Anyway,” thought he, “it is better to 
be outside, where I can run away.” So, 
very, very carefully, he began to creep 
around the wall toward the door. 

He could n’t see a thing, but he knew 
he would at last come to that door, if he 
kept on going long enough and did n’t 
bump into anything on the way. 

My, but Jimmy crept along carefully, 
right on the tip of his toes I He did n’t 
make even the tiniest noise. 

Now, by this time the great storm was 
nearly over and the stars were beginning 
to peep out and Silver Moon was trying 
to shine again from behind the smoky 
hurrying clouds. 

In fact, friendly Silver Moon sent one 
of her swift little beams of light right 
through a tiny crack in that door and 


56 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

as Jimmy Bunn looked where it rested 
upon the floor of the old shed, he saw — 
my goodness, gracious! what do you 
think? He saw Mr. Wolf. 

Yes, Mr. Wolf had been out hunting 
on the Green Hill just as Short Horns 
had said he sometimes did and he had 
almost got drowned in the rain. In the 
darkness he had hurt his paw on a sharp 
rock, so that he had limped along till he 
came to the old shed, where he had crept 
in out of the wet. And now there he sat, 
licking his sore foot with his long red 
tongue. 

But Mr. Wolf had not seen Jimmy 
Bunn — no, not yet. In fact, he had 
not even smelled him, for he was all 
tired out and so busy licking his sore 
foot that he had n’t even thought about 
Jimmy. 

No indeed, he never even dreamed 


MISTER WOLF IS LOCKED UP 57 

that Jimmy Bunn was out on that lonely 
Green Hill in the middle of the night. 

Oh, how Jimmy trembled! For just 
think, old Mr. Wolf was so near that, if 
he had known about it, he could almost 
have reached out his paw and touched 
Jimmy. 

Now, Jimmy Bunn knew that if Mis- 
ter Wolf did see him, his life would n’t 
be worth two cents. For Mr. Wolf, 
even if he did have a sore foot, could 
catch him on that lonely Green Hill in 
just about seven jumps. 

Yes indeed he could! 

But you will remember I have often told 
you that Jimmy Bunn never, never gives 
up. And so he began very slowly and 
very carefully to open that door just a 
teeny bit more. Just a wee bit more, in 
fact, so he could just barely squeeze him- 
self out. 


58 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

And he did. 

But just then, just as he got about half- 
way out, the old door gave a squeak (you 
know doors will give a squeak some- 
times, no matter how careful we are) 
and old Mr. Wolf looked up and saw 
Jimmy right in the middle of that moon- 
beam. 

My, but Mr. Wolf was astonished! 
Really, he could hardly believe he was 
awake. 

Sometimes, you know, one is so aston- 
ished that one can scarcely move and 
that was just the way Mr. Wolf felt when 
he saw Jimmy Bunn in the middle of 
that moonbeam. 

And that moment of as-ton-ish-ment 
was what Jimmy needed. 

He gave one frantic wriggle and was 
outside in a jiffy and then he turned 
around and quicker than anything he 


MISTER WOLF IS LOCKED UP 59 

slammed that door shut and locked it. 

Did I tell you there was a lock on that 
door? No, I think I did n’t. But there 
was, because Farmer Johnson used 
sometimes to shut Short Horns in that 
old shed when he had n’t behaved him- 
self. 

Yes, sir, there was a lock on that door 
and Jimmy Bunn turned the key — snap! 
just like that — and then, as old Mr. Wolf 
sprang at the door, Jimmy turned and 
ran. 

Bang! went Mr. Wolf against the in- 
side of the door. He hit it so hard that 
the walls of the shed trembled and the 
lock almost broke in two. But it did n’t, 
it held tight. It was certainly a strong 
lock. 

Jimmy heard that bang and he heard 
the yell of pain that Mr. Wolf gave when 
his sore foot hit the door and it made 


6o JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Jimmy run so fast that he looked like a 
white streak in the starlight. 

Down the hill he went lick-et-y-split. 

He fell over rocks and old tree stumps 
and went splash into big puddles of 
muddy rain water so that his white coat 
was a sight to be seen. 

But he never stopped for anything. 

He saw old Short Horns and one of 
the calves standing under an old tree and 
he went by them so quickly that they held 
their breath in amazement. 

Down, down he went and over the old 
stonewall and under the wire fence, and 
a piece of the broken wire tore a great 
big chunk put of Jimmy’s fur coat, so 
that it hung there blowing in the night 
wind. 

And then, then there was his old home 
in the hillside and when Jimmy had run 
away down into his own bed-chamber 


MISTER WOLF IS LOCKED UP 6i 

and jumped into his own comfortable 
bed he lay there and thought to himself 
that, after all, there was no place like 
home. And I think you will agree with 
me that there is n’t. 

Of course Jimmy’s mother had been 
terribly worried about him and had n’t 
slept a wink all that night, but she was so 
glad to see him that I don’t believe she 
punished him at all for running away. 

Would you have punished him if you 
had been his mother? 

And what became of old Mr. Wolf 
locked in the old shed on the hillside? 

Oh, well, I ’m going to tell you all 
about that some other time. 


HOW MISTER WOLF WAS 
FOUND OUT 


I T was early in the morning of the next 
day after the great storm. 

And you will remember it was during 
the night of the great storm that Jimmy 
Bunn had locked Mr. Wolf in the old 
shed on the Green Hill. 

Well, after Mr. Wolf had found he 
could n’t, to save his life, get out of the 
old shed, he had at last fallen asleep right 
there on the wet floor. It was pretty un- 
comfortable, but Mr. Wolf was so tired 
out he just went to sleep in spite of every- 
thing. 

And how he did snore! At last he 
snored so loud that the noise he made 
woke him up and there was the sun shin- 
ing right in through a crack in the door. 

62 


MISTER WOLF FOUND OUT 63 

Yes, it was morning and it was break- 
fast-time, but there was n’t any breakfast 
waiting for him in that old shed. 

And Mr. Wolf was as hungry as any- 
thing. 

He walked all around the old shed and 
he rattled the door and he sniffed very 
loudly at the crack in it, but that was all 
the good it did him and at last he realized 
that he was a prisoner. 

And then he got scared. 

Yes, indeed he did, because at heart 
Mr. Wolf is really a great, big coward, 
and a coward almost always gets scared 
pretty easily. 

Besides, he was very much ashamed to 
think how Jimmy Bunn had locked him 
up in that old shed. 

He was pretty sure that nobody had 
seen Jimmy do it, but I ’ll tell you a se- 
cret — Somebody had! 


64 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Almost always, you know, there is 
somebody who sees us when we think 
nobody does. 

Now, right beside that old shed was a 
very tall pine-tree and because it grew 
near the top of that high Green Hill, it 
made a splendid watch-tower. 

Yes, it made a very fine watch-tower 
for a very wise old fellow who had been 
sitting there all through the storm of the 
night before. 

A wise old fellow with long curved 
claws and a great fierce beak and big, 
round yellow eyes, eyes that can see very 
well at night, and a — Well, can’t some- 
body tell me who it was that had his 
perch in that tall pine-tree? 

Good! I knew some of you could 
guess it. Sure enough, it was Gray 
Shadow, the owl. 

Gray Shadow had been sitting there 


MISTER WOLF FOUND OUT 65 

all hunched up like a big ball, but had 
kept his eyes open for all that, and if it 
hadn’t been raining so hard and if 
Jimmy Bunn hadn’t been running so 
fast Gray Shadow would himself have 
pounced on him as sure as fate. For 
Gray Shadow just loves rabbits — to eat, 
I mean. 

So you see Jimmy had really had two 
narrow escapes that night. 

Yes, Gray Shadow the owl had seen 
Jimmy Bunn lock Mr. Wolf in the old 
shed and had laughed silently to himself. 
And he had also been waked up very 
early that morning by Mr. Wolf’s loud 
snoring, so he knew he was still a pris- 
oner. 

“I want my breakfast,” said Gray 
Shadow, “but I ’ll be jiggered if I don’t 
stay here a while longer and see what is 
going to become of Mr. Wolf.” 


66 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Well, when Mr. Wolf found he 
could n’t get out of the old shed all by 
himself, he sat up and began to howl. 

You know some folks always begin to 
howl when they can’t at once get what 
they want, which, of course, is a foolish 
thing to do. 

But Mr. Wolf really had an idea back 
of his howling. He hoped Mrs. Wolf 
would hear it and hurry to help him. 

Of course Mr. Wolf always thinks he 
is pretty clever and no doubt he is, but 
every once in a while when things go 
wrong, or he can’t find what he wants, 
he sets up a howl for Mrs. Wolf. 

So he put his nose right against that 
crack in the door, so as to let all the noise 
out at once, and howled long and loud — 
in fact so long and so loud that Mrs. 
Wolf did hear him, away back in her 
home in the deep woods. So you see 


MISTER WOLF FOUND OUT 67 

Mr. Wolf might really be called a howl- 
ing success. 

She was just putting on her hat to go 
to market and she was just a little bit 
cross to think that instead she would 
have to go and look for her husband. 
And the long walk up the Green Hill, 
in answer to Mr. Wolf’s howls, didn’t 
improve her temper a bit. 

Nevertheless, she howled back once 
in a while, to cheer him up wherever he 
was, and trudged along until finally she 
came to the old shed. 

“What in goodness’ name are you do- 
ing in there?” she said, as soon as she 
could get her breath. 

“Can’t you see ! I ’m trying to get 
out,” replied Mr. Wolf and I am sorry to 
say he did n’t speak very politely, either, 
for he was getting hungrier and hun- 
grier every minute. 


68 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Now, of course, as I have said, Mr. 
Wolf was very much ashamed to think 
that Jimmy Bunn had locked him in the 
old shed. In fact, he was so ashamed of 
it that he did n’t want anybody to know 
a thing about it. So when Mrs. Wolf 
asked him what he was doing in that old 
shed, he looked at her through the crack 
in the door and said : 

“Why, you know, Lena — ’’ 

Did I tell you Mrs. Wolf’s name was 
Lena? Well, it was. She was named 
after her mother, who was a French wolf 
named Madame Lenape — but to go on 
with the story, Mr. Wolf said : 

“You see, Lena, my dear — ahem! — 
that is to say — I mean — it was this way. 
I just came in here last night to get out of 
the rain.” 

Now, that was a queer way for Mr. 
Wolf to talk, was n’t it? But you see he 


MISTER WOLF FOUND OUT 69 

did n’t intend to tell all of the truth if he 
could help it and, like men and women 
and boys and girls, once he started out to 
de-ceive somebody he got all mixed up in 
his talk and he really didn’t de-ceive 
Mrs. Wolf at all. 

But all she said was, “So this is where 
you ’ve been all night, after leaving me 
alone to be frightened nearly to death by 
all that thunder and lightning!’’ 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Wolf, “you see I 
came in here all by rnyself to try to keep 
dry and the wind blew the door to and 
now I can’t open it.” 

My goodness ! was n’t that a whopper 
of a story? 

“And I suppose,” replied Mrs. Wolf, 
looking at the closed door and the big 
key, “I suppose after going in you after- 
ward locked the door yourself, on the 
outside.” 


70 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

There! You see, Mr. Wolf, by not 
telling the whole of the truth at once, was 
finally obliged to tell a story that was n’t 
true at all. And, as almost always hap- 
pens, he got found out. 

Now, all this time, while Mrs. and Mr. 
Wolf were talking (and they talked very 
loud, as most persons do when they’re 
angry) Gray Shadow the owl, on his 
perch in the tall pine-tree, was enjoying 
himself very much indeed. 

Of course he heard everything they 
both said and at first he was going to 
speak right out and tell Mrs. Wolf the 
truth about that locked door. And then 
he began to pity poor Mr. Wolf a little 
and thought maybe he would n’t tell her. 

But what he did do was to drop silently 
down to a lower perch on a limb right 
over their heads, where he would be sure 


MISTER WOLF FOUND OUT 71 

not to lose a word of their con-ver-sa- 
tion. 

Well, when Mr. Wolf heard Lena, his 
wife, ask him if he had locked that door 
on the outside after he was on the inside, 
he knew he was stumped. He knew for 
sure that Mrs. Wolf did n’t believe him, 
but he was n’t going to admit he had 
been telling a fib unless he had to. In 
fact, he was such a very bad wolf that he 
decided to tell another whopper of a 
story to protect himself, so he said : 

“Well, you see, while I was asleep 
Farmer Johnson must have come up 
here and locked that door, himself.” 

Well, when Mr. Wolf said that — when 
he said Farmer Johnson must have got 
out of his warm bed and come all the 
way up that Green Hill in the middle of 
the night and in all that storm, just to 
lock the door of an old empty shed (at 


72 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

least Farmer Johnson thought it was 
empty) — Gray Shadow the owl could n’t 
believe his ears. 

He had never before in all his life 
heard such a whopper of a whopper. 

And so he just could n’t help it — he 
flapped his wings and opened his mouth 
and screamed, “Whoo! whoo! whoo!” 
as loud as he could hoot. 

Yes, and Mrs. Wolf looked up at Gray 
Shadow the owl and then she looked 
through the crack in the door at old Mr. 
Wolf and cried out, “Who? who? who?” 
herself. 

“Yes,” Mrs. Wolf cried, “Who? who? 
who? who was it, Mr. Wolf, you said 
turned the key in that lock? Who was 
it? That old bird up there does n’t be- 
lieve you. He wants to know who 
it was turned that key and let me tell you, 
I want to know who it was, myself” 



) 




MISTER WOLF FOUND OUT 75 

Poor old Mr. Wolf! He certainly 
had thought that nobody but himself 
knew Jimmy Bunn had locked that door. 
And nobody could have seen it in the 
dark except Gray Shadow, who, as you 
know, can see just as well in the darkness 
as you can in the daytime. 

Yes, Mr. Wolf knew that he was 
found out at last and he looked very 
sheepish indeed and he resolved on two 
things im-me-di-ate-ly. One was to be 
very careful in the future not to tell 
whoppers, and the other was to get even 
with Gray Shadow the first chance he 
got. 

Of course there was nothing for Mr. 
Wolf to do now but tell the whole truth 
about Jimmy Bunn having locked that 
door. 

So he did and then Mrs. Wolf grum- 
blingly turned the key and let him out. 


76 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

But, honestly, she was so angry to think 
how Mr. Wolf had tried to de-ceive her 
that she had almost made up her mind to 
let Mr. Wolf stay in that old shed forever. 

Well, after she had unlocked the door 
she and Mr. Wolf started off down the 
Green Hill for home, but between you 
and me they really did n’t have much to 
say to each other. 

As for Gray Shadow, he flew back to 
his high perch and began to look for his 
breakfast. He found a fat field-mouse 
he had half eaten the night before and 
which he had really forgotten all about 
while listening to Mr. and Mrs. Wolf 
quarreling. 

That ’s one of the foolish things about 
a quarrel, is n’t it? 

It often makes us forget all about a 
great many more important things. 


JIMMY BUNN AND THE WILD 
GEESE 

I T was late in the fall of the year and 
the weather had turned very cold. 
Every morning when Jimmy Bunn 
poked his pink nose out of his house in 
the hillside, he could see, glistening in 
the sun, a white and shining carpet of 
frost on the meadows. 

It soon melted away in the sunlight, 
but Jimmy knew it meant that winter 
was coming. 

All around the shore of the Big Pond 
there was a wide necklace of thin, 
crackly ice and it looked to Jimmy as 
though Farmer Johnson’s cows were 
smoking, because when they breathed. 


77 


78 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

what looked like thin smoke rose from 
their mouths. 

Suddenly, away up in the clear blue 
sky, Jimmy saw a flock of birds flying 
right over his head. 

He guessed they were big birds be- 
cause they flew very fast and were soon 
out of sight. But before they were 
gone, Jimmy noticed they were flying in 
two lines — a wedge-shape formation, 
just like when you stretch out your first 
and second fingers, keeping them as far 
apart as you can. 

If you will do this and imagine those 
birds were flying toward you, you will 
see exactly how the flock looked to 
Jimmy. 

Just before they had flown out of 
sight, Jimmy’s father came out and 
looked up at them, too. 

“Well, well!’’ he said. “That’s the 


THE WILD GEESE 


79 

first flock of wild geese I Ve seen this 
fall. They are going south for the win- 
ter.” 

“What makes them fly like that?” 
asked Jimmy. 

“Because it ’s easier,” replied his 
father. “You see, the biggest and 
strongest one flies first and sort of makes 
a hole in the air so the others can fly more 
easily.” 

“How does a goose know that?” 
asked Jimmy. “I thought a goose 
did n’t know much of anything.” 

“Well, you know, a goose is n’t as 
crazy as some persons suppose,” an- 
swered his father, “although sometimes 
geese do act very foolishly indeed. 
They are very curious, too. In fact, 
they are much more curious than their 
cousins, the ducks. 

“If you would like to go over to the 


8o JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Big Pond with me early to-morrow 
morning and will promise to keep very, 
very still, perhaps I ’ll be able to show 
you just how curiously wild geese can 
sometimes act.” 

“Yes, indeed, I ’d like to go,” replied 
Jimmy and ran in to tell his mother 
about it. 

So very early the next morning, Jimmy 
and his father started for the Big Pond. 

When they got there it was just barely 
sun-up and as yet not very light. 

Very carefully they crept around 
through the woods until they were al- 
most on the edge of the farther side, 
where a point of land stretched out to- 
ward the middle of the water. There 
was a high ledge of rocks near it and up 
they climbed till they got to the top and 
could look right down on the shore and 
over the surface of the Big Pond. 


THE WILD GEESE 8i 

When they got there the first thing 
that Jimmy saw was a big flock of geese 
near the edge of the water. 

“Just look!” he whispered excitedly. 
“There are some of them right now.” 

His father laughed softly. 

“Look again, Jimmy,” said he. 
“Those are not real geese, they are made 
of wood and anchored there. Just 
watch ; you ’ll see that they don’t move 
one bit.” 

Jimmy took another long look. Sure 
enough, not one of those geese moved at 
all, except that they rode the little waves 
like small boats. 

“Now look over there,” said Father 
Bunny, pointing to the end of the point 
of land. “Look very carefully at those 
weeds and bushes and tell me if you see 
anything queer about them.” 

Jimmy looked eagerly and with sharp 


82 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

eyes to where his father pointed and then 
he pinched his father’s paw excitedly. 

“Oh, Daddy,” he whispered all of a 
tremble, “those are n’t real growing 
weeds, at all! There is a little house 
right back of them under the bushes and 
I can see men with guns and spy-glasses 
just outside and there ’s a dog, a black 
spaniel ; one of the men is holding him 
by a chain.” 

Father Bunn chuckled under his 
breath. 

“You wait a little and you ’ll see a lot 
more,” he continued. “What ’s that, 
away off there in the sky?” 

Jimmy looked where his father was 
pointing. Sure enough, there was a 
flock of geese, flying toward them, but 
as yet so far away as to be scarcely seen. 

Then quite suddenly a big gander — 
you know Father Goose is called a 


THE WILD GEESE 83 

gander, don’t you? — a big gander flew 
right up out of that place where the men 
were and he circled around and 
screamed, “Honk! Honk! Honk!” as 
loud as he could and then he lit on the 
ground right on the edge of the shore. 

“Now watch those geese in the air,” 
whispered Jimmy’s father. 

Jimmy looked up and suddenly that 
flock of wild geese changed their course 
a little and flew right toward that bunch 
of weeds and bushes. 

“My goodness!” exclaimed Jimmy, 
excitedly. “What ’s it all about?” 

“Sh-h-h-h! not so loud,” said Father 
Bunn. “That place where the men are 
is called a ‘Blind,’ and those men are 
after the wild geese. 

“Those wooden things that look like 
geese are called ‘decoys.’ That means 
they are put there to make the wild geese 


84 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

think the ‘decoys’ are their real live 
friends, so they will fly over and visit 
them. The big gander is a tame goose 
and was let out so he would fly up and 
make a noise to attract the attention of 
those wild relations of his. He can’t 
fly very far, anyway, because his wings 
are clipped. Those wild geese have 
heard him, too. See them coming. 
They probably think this is a fine place 
to rest and eat breakfast.” 

‘‘It ’s very wrong to fool them that 
way, is n’t it?” asked Jimmy. 

‘‘Well, that depends,” replied his 
father. ‘‘If the hunters want them to 
eat and are not trying to shoot them for 
sport, I suppose in a way it ’s all right.” 

‘‘Well, I think it ’s pretty mean,” said 
Jimmy. “Oh, look! those wild geese 
are lighting in the water, but I should 
think they were too far away to shoot.” 


THE WILD GEESE 85 

“Yes, I suppose they are,” replied his 
father, “but those hunters are very wise 
folks and they know, too, just how fool- 
ishly geese will sometimes act. Now, 
you watch that man near the edge of the 
bushes. And you watch the dog, too.” 

Jimmy looked and saw the hunter take 
something in his hand and throw it way 
out to the edge of the Big Pond. It was 
round and it bounced. “Why, it ’s a 
rubber ball,” whispered Jimmy. 
“What ’s he doing that for?” 

“Don’t talk so loud,” said his father. 
“See that!” 

One of the hunters had untied the dog 
and quick as anything the black spaniel 
rushed out of the bushes and ran down 
to the edge of the water. He picked the 
ball up in his mouth and brought it back. 

“Why, that dog will scare those wild 
geese to death!” said Jimmy Bunn. 


86 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

“No, he won’t,” replied Father 
Bunn. “You remember I told you 
how geese are always very curious. 
Just see them swim toward that blind to 
find out what the dog is doing.” 

Sure enough, those geese were swim- 
ming toward the land as fast as they 
could swim, with their long necks 
stretched out as though they just 
could n’t get there fast enough. 

Then Jimmy saw the hunter take the 
ball from the black spaniel’s mouth and 
throw it out again and once more the 
black spaniel brought it back. 

By this time the wild geese were very, 
very near the edge of the Big Pond and 
Jimmy could see the hunters with their 
guns at their shoulders, aiming right at 
that flock of foolish birds. 

Then suddenly he heard a hunter 
shout, “Now!” and bang! bang! bang! 



Splash, splash, ker-splash went the wild geese 












THE WILD GEESE 


went those guns, so loud that Jimmy put 
his fingers in his ears. 

The surface of the Big Pond where 
those geese were swimming looked as 
though it were raining, for hundreds of 
tiny shot were striking the water all at 
once. 

My ! but there was a terrible hubbub ! 
Splash, splash, ker-s plash went the geese, 
as their mighty wings beat upon the 
water in their sudden efforts to fly away. 
And then up they all rose, with the water 
flying from their feathers like a great 
spray of shining diamonds in the early 
sunshine. 

Then, bang! bang! bang! went the 
guns again and the noise made Jimmy’s 
ears tingle, for he had taken his fingers 
away, not knowing that hunters almost 
always carry two shots in their guns. 

At this second blast of shot one of the 


90 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

big geese turned right over in the air and 
Jimmy thought he was going to fall into 
the water, but suddenly he turned right 
side up again and flew after his friends. 

“Humph!” said Father Bunn, “I 
think one of those bullets must have 
tickled his ribs a bit. But it seems to me 
those hunters are pretty poor shots.” 

By this time the flock of geese was 
away up in the air and Jimmy saw them 
form into their familiar V shape again, 
as they got higher and higher. 

Pretty soon they were mere specks 
against the blue sky and then in the dis- 
tance they faded away, quite out of sight. 

“Well, Sonny,” said Jimmy’s father, 
smiling, “I fancy those geese won’t be 
quite so curious the next time they spy 
something they don’t understand. 

“Let ’s go home and see if we can help 
Mother.” 


JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE 



OBODY in the whole forest liked 


Mr. Wolf. He had no friends at 


all. 


You see, he was such a mean old 
fellow. He never helped anybody. 
He wasn n’t even polite. And nobody 
could remember that he ever had given 
anybody anything. 

Of course Mrs. Wolf liked him and 
his children liked him, except on such 
occasions as he came home very hungry 
and very cross. 

And Mr. Wolf had been very, very 
cross since Jimmy Bunn had got away 
from him, when he had chased Jimmy 
into the hollow log. 


91 


92 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

So whenever he passed that way he 
would go and look into that old log and 
growl and kick away the dirt with his 
hind legs. 

By and by it got to be a habit of his 
to go each day to that hollow log and sit 
down before it and grumble away like 
anything. 

Peggy Woodpecker, who had her nest 
in a hole in an old tree near by, used to 
watch Mr. Wolf do this and she just 
could n’t understand why he did it. 

Anyway, she thought Jimmy Bunn 
might like to know about it, so one day 
she flew over to Jimmie’s house. 

Jimmy was in his front yard, eating 
his breakfast. You know Jimmy is 
really never so happy as when eating. 

“Good morning,” said Peggy, light- 
ing on an old stump and looking about 
with her sharp eyes for bugs. 


JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE 93 

“Good morning to you,” replied 
Jimmy, sitting up, “What ’s the 
news?” 

“That ’s what I have come to tell you,” 
said Peggy. “You know, my house is 
over by that old hollow log on the edge 
of the woods.” 

Jimmy nodded. 

“Well, I thought you might be inter- 
ested to know that Mr. Wolf comes over 
there nearly every day and looks into that 
log and growls, I wonder why he does 
that. He ’s certainly very angry about 
something.” 

“I think I can answer that question,” 
said Jimmy, smiling. “I got away from 
him one day and hid in that old log. 
Maybe he thinks I ’m still there.” 

“Well, why don’t you make him be- 
lieve you aref” said Pegg>, with a twin- 
kle in her eye. 


94 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

“How?” said Jimmy, growing inter- 
ested. 

“That ’s easy,” returned Peggy. 
“Why don’t you dress something up to 
look like you and put it inside that hol- 
low log just out of his reach? 

“He will think it ’s you and it will be 
a great joke. Day after to-morrow is 
April Fool’s Day. Do it then. I ’ll tell 
the other birds and maybe Connie Coon 
about it. We ’ll all be there to watch 
Mr. Wolf.” 

Jimmy thought it over. 

“It would be a great joke, would n’t 
it?” he said to himself. Then he looked 
up at Peggy again and laughed. 

“Fine! I ’ll see what I can do,” he 
said, and he ran at once into the house. 

Now, in the back room of Jimmie’s 
home there was a very old woodchuck 
skin on the floor before the fireplace. 


JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE 95 

It had belonged to Jimmie’s great-gxzxid- 
father, who had found it one day back 
of Farmer Johnson’s barn, where 
Farmer Johnson’s hired man had thrown 
it after skinning its owner. Jimmie’s 
great-grandfather had thought it would 
make a good rug for his house and so 
he had brought it home. 

Well, Jimmy took that old woodchuck 
skin and ran out with it. He should 
have asked his mother for it first, but 
he thought maybe she would n’t let him 
have it. You see, Jimmy was n’t always 
as careful about such matters as he might 
have been. 

He took it out to the old dump back 
of Farmer Johnson’s house and he 
hunted around till he found an old rusty 
rat-trap. 

Then very carefully he stretched the 
woodchuck skin around the old trap and 


96 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

he pinned it together with some big 
thorns from a locust tree. 

When it was done it certainly did look 
something like a big bunny. Not so 
very much like one, you know, but in 
an almost dark hollow log Jimmy 
thought it would answer very well. 

Then very early the next day — for he 
knew that Mr. Wolf was usually out 
hunting at night and slept very late in 
the morning — Jimmy took his old make- 
believe woodchuck, which looked at 
least a little like a rabbit, and carried it 
to the hollow log. He put it at the end 
of the log and pushed it away in with a 
stick so you could just barely see it. 

Meantime Peggy Woodpecker sat up ' 
on a tall stump near by and kept watch. 

After he had finished Jimmy Bunn 
stamped his hind feet in the soft earth 
in front of the log so as to make a rabbit 


JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE 97 

track to help fool Mr. Wolf. And, 
upon the advice of Peggy Woodpecker, 
he pulled a piece of white fur off his 
breast and stuck it on the end of the log 
just as though it had caught there ac-ci- 
dent-ally. 

But where could Jimmy Bunn hide so 
as to see the fun when old Mr. Wolf 
came along? 

Peggy gave him an idea. “Come 
right up to my house,” she said. 

“Your house?” replied Jimmy. 
“The idea! How could I climb up to 
your house?” 

“Why, that ’s easy,” said Peggy. 
“Do you see a hole right there at the 
bottom of that tree, where those red ants 
are working? Well that ’s my cellar 
door.” 

Jimmy ran over and looked, and sure 
enough there was a big hole right near 


98 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

the ground and a lot of sawdust running 
out of it. 

“Those red ants do that,” said Peggy. 
“They have a home, too, in this old tree, 
and they have made a big stairway lead- 
ing right up to my nest. It ’s a pretty 
steep stairway, but I believe you can 
climb it, for that old tree leans over side- 
ways a good bit. Suppose you try it and 
see.” 

So Jimmy Bunn walked in at the hole 
and began to scratch and climb up the 
old sawdusty stairway that had once been 
the heart of that fine old chestnut tree. 

It was very hard work and very dusty 
work, but Jimmy stuck to it — which is, 
you know, the only way, after all, to get 
anything done. 

So after a while Jimmy squeezed up 
to Peggy Woodpecker’s nest, which was 
in a little side-pocket shelf and then 


JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE 99 

he found that by putting his front paws 
on the edge of the hole he could look 
right out of doors and see pretty nearly 
everything. 

My, but it was nice up there! He 
could see his old home in the bank, and 
the Big Pond, and Farmer Johnson’s 
house. He began to wish that he could 
live in just such a place himself. 

“I wish my mother could come up here 
sometime,” he said to Peggy Wood- 
pecker. 

“Some day I ’m going to invite — ” 
Then suddenly, rat-tat-tat went Peggy. 
“Look, Jimmy! look!” she called ex- 
citedly. 

Jimmy looked with all his eyes and 
then he grew as still as a mouse. 

Away over there by the edge of the 
woods he could see something moving. 
It crept slowly out into* the sunshine and 


loo JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

began to steal along toward the hollow 
log in front of the tree where Jimmy 
Bunn was hiding. 

Jimmy hardly breathed and his eyes 
grew very big and round. It was Mr. 
Wolf, coming to visit the hollow log. 

Yes, it was Mr. Wolf, and no mistake, 
and he came straight for that hollow log. 

He looked very cross, too, for he had 
about made up his mind that Jimmy 
was n’t really there. But he was going 
to have just one more last peek, at any 
rate, to make sure. 

You know sometimes when you are 
hunting for a thing you have mislaid, 
you often go and look for it again in the 
very same place you have looked only a 
few moments before, even though you 
just know it is n’t there. 

Well, that is the way Mr. Wolf felt 
about Jimmy Bunny and the hollow log. 


JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE loi 

Yet when Mr. Wolf got to that hollow 
log and saw those fresh bunny tracks, all 
his anger vanished and he began to 
chuckle. And when he saw that bit of 
rabbit fur on the edge of the hole and 
had peered into the end of the log and 
saw there what he thought was Jimmy, 
he laughed right out loud. 

But Mr. Wolf didn’t do all the 
laughing, for Jimmy, from his lookout 
perch in the tree, was giggling softly to 
himself. And Peggy Woodpecker had 
to giggle, too. 

Mr. Wolf couldn’t see Jimmy, be- 
cause he never thought of looking up 
there for anybody, but he glanced se- 
verely at Peggy Woodpecker. 

“What are you laughing at?” he said, 
growling. 

Peggy rat-tat-tatted on the old stump 
and smiled knowingly. 


102 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

“Oh, I was thinking of a very good 
joke I heard this morning,” said she. 

“Well, I don’t care anything about 
your jokes,” said Mr. Wolf. “You at- 
tend to your business of looking for 
grubs and I ’ll attend to mine.” 

Then Mr. Wolf began searching for a 
long stick. 

He found one presently — a very long 
stick, with a broken branch on the end 
of it like a fish-hook. And he began to 
reach carefully into that old log and sud- 
denly he began to pull hard. He was 
sure he had caught Jimmy Bunn this 
time. 

He pulled and grunted and grunted 
and at last out came the stick and with it 
popped the rusty rat-trap covered with 
the old woodchuck skin. 

Mr. Wolf was so excited over his luck 
that he never even stopped to look care- 



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JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE 105 

fully, but dropped the stick and jumped 
right on top of his prize. Snap! went 
his jaws. 

He bit so hard he broke one of his 
teeth on the trap and filled his mouth 
full of old woodchuck hair. 

Then there was a great noise. 

Peggy Woodpecker flapped her wings 
and laughed hoarsely. 

Bushy Tail, the gray squirrel, who 
had been watching things from a beech- 
nut tree, chattered like a monkey. Con- 
nie Coon, who was sleeping in the top of 
a tree near by, waked up and stretched 
his neck to see what all the rumpus was 
about. As for Jimmy Bunn, he 
laughed so hard that he lost his hold on 
the edge of the hole and nearly fell out 
on the ground. 

“Do you see my joke now?” screamed 
Peggy Woodpecker, “Ha, ha, ha! it ’s 


io6 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

a good one, is n’t it?” and she rat-tat- 
tatted till all the bugs in that old stump 
thought the end of the world was coming. 

Mr. Wolf did n’t say a word, but the 
look he gave Peggy was a terrible one. 

He glanced at that old woodchuck 
skin in great surprise and then suddenly 
he remembered that his wife had told 
him to be home early that day. Putting 
his tail between his legs, he ske-daddled 
right back into the forest as fast as his 
legs would carry him. 

After he disappeared, Jimmy Bunn 
climbed down and ran home lick-et-y- 
split, to tell his mother all about it, while 
Connie Coon smiled to himself and 
promptly went to sleep again. 

As for Peggy Woodpecker, she at 
once flew away to And all her friends as 
quickly as possible and tell them how 


JIMMY BUNN’S BIG JOKE 107 

she and Jimmy Bunn had that morning 
played the greatest joke of their whole 
lives on old Mr. Wolf. 


PETER PORCUPINE’S 
ADVENTURE 

HERE are always so many inter- 



1 esting things to be discovered in 
the Deep Woods and along the shores 
of the Big Pond, that Jimmy Bunn often 
neglects to look after the daily duties his 
mother points out to him. 

She really does n’t ask him to do much 
and you would think he would put his 
toys away after playing with them and 
also try to keep his face and hands clean, 
would n’t you? 

But this particular morning was so 
warm and pleasant that Jimmy decided 
to put off doing anything useful, so he 
skipped out of the house very early and 
started for the Big Pond, 


PETER PORCUPINE 


109 

When he got there he sat down near 
the shore and waited to see the little 
fishes jump out of the water, which they 
often did in trying to escape from the 
great, big greedy fish who wanted to eat 
them. 

Fishes, you know, are really canni- 
bals ; which means that they will eat one 
another whenever they are hungry and 
can catch little neighbors of theirs who 
are much smaller than themselves. 

After a while Jimmy got tired watch- 
ing the fish jump and was just about to 
hop away when whom should he see 
coming toward him but Peter Porcu- 
pine. 

Peter’s quilly coat was lying smooth 
and flat, just like a boy’s hair when he 
has it nicely brushed for a party. 

It is always that way when Peter is 
quiet and contented, but when he gets 


no JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

angry, or when, as Mr. Shakspere says, 
he is “fretful,” his quills all fluff up un- 
til he looks like a great big pin-cushion 
full of very long, curved needles. 

“Good morning, Peter,” said Jimmy. 
“What ’s the news?” 

“There is n’t any,” replied Peter, “ex- 
cept that I am pretty hungry.” 

“What kinds of things do you like to 
eat?” said Jimmy. 

“Oh, all kinds,” replied Peter, “but 
what I really prefer are the nice tidbits 
that hunters and fishermen leave on the 
ground after lunch. I also like the 
bark of trees ; you can see where I ’ve 
been gnawing them all around here. 
And then besides I often eat wooden 
floors.” 

“Wooden floors!” said Jimmy, in as- 
tonishment. “You must be trying to 


PETER PORCUPINE 


III 


fool me, Peter Porcupine. Nobody 
eats wooden floors.” 

“Well, 1 do,” said Peter, “that is to 
say, I go into hunters’ and lumbei men’s 
cabins and gnaw holes in the floor, to get 
the grease where they ’ve spilled soup 
and gravy on the boards. Sometimes 
when hunters come back here after be- 
ing away all spring and summer, they 
can almost fall into some of the holes 
I ’ve gnawed, they are so big. I 
ought n’t to do it, I know, but then, they 
have no right to come into my woods and 
cut down my trees.” 

“Why, you must have teeth like a 
rat!” said Jimmy. 

“Well, I have,” said Peter, “and I 
know how to use them, too. But of 
course nobody bothers me much, on ac- 
count of my quills. 


1 12 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

“You see, each quill has a tiny barb 
on the end of it like a fish-hook and when 
the quills get into one’s skin they don’t 
come out very easily. I ’ve seen a dog 
that had tried to bite me get his nose so 
full of my quills that it looked like a pin- 
cushion. And how he did howl about 
it!” 

“Gracious!” said Jimmy, “I should 
think he would! Doesn’t it hurt you 
when they come out?” 

“No, indeed,” replied Peter Porcu- 
pine. “I can lose thousands of ’em and 
more keep right on growing in their 
places.” 

“I ’ve never seen your house,” said 
Jimmy. “Where do you live?” 

“Oh, I live in a den near here under 
some old tree roots,” replied Peter Por- 
cupine. “I can climb trees, too,” he 
continued, “not so fast of course as Bushy 


PETER PORCUPINE 


113 


Tail, the gray squirrel, but in my slow 
way I get there just the same. ‘Slow 
and sure’ is my motto. Some folks, 
when they start out to do things, rush 
ahead so fast they often make mistakes. 

“I ’ve climbed some of the highest 
trees in these woods. Look up there 
and you ’ll see some of my careful work 
— there where those strips of bark are 
taken off. I can peel it off as neatly as 
a carpenter could.” 

“Does n’t it kill the trees to peel off 
the bark all around like that?” asked 
Jimmy. 

“Yes, I suppose it does,” replied Peter 
Porcupine, “but who cares? There are 
plenty of trees around here, anyway.” 

“Why, you have quills on your tail, 
too!” exclaimed Jimmy, looking at his 
friend more at-ten-tive-ly. 

“Sure, I have,” replied Peter, “and 


1 14 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

when anybody bothers me I swish it 
around, and if it hits any one the quills 
stab in pretty deep. There ’s a big fish 
jumping out there somewhere. I can 
hear him.” 

Jimmy looked out across the Big 
Pond. 

Sure enough, it was a big fish, but he 
was on the end of a hook and line and 
there were three canoes, with two fisher- 
men and a guide in each one. They had 
come in very close, and very silently too, 
so as not to scare the fish, and they were 
evidently going to land right where 
Jimmy and Peter were talking. 

“Hurry, hurry, Peter, and hide your- 
self!” exclaimed Jimmy, as he himself 
jumped into some thick bushes. Then 
he turned and looked back; he wanted 
to see what Peter Porcupine would do. 

It was just as Peter had said — he never 


PETER PORCUPINE 115 

hurried. Quietly and clumsily, Jimmy 
thought, he began to climb the trunk of 
a small though tall pine-tree, which 
grew near the foot of a hill close to the 
water’s edge. 

There were no branches on it except 
near the top and Jimmy watched Peter 
as he slowly shinned upward and then 
sat down on a limb near the top. He 
was all humped up and Jimmy thought 
he looked like a great big rat. 

Pretty soon the fishermen’s canoes 
grated on the sandy beach and the men 
got out of them and walked up on the 
shore. Jimmy saw that several of them 
were carrying a number of fine fat sal- 
mon, whose silver scales glistened in the 
sun, 

Jimmy guessed those men were get- 
ting ready for dinner and he was right, 
for soon one of the guides started a fire 


ii6 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

and another went down to the shore to 
dress the fish. 

“I wonder if any of them will spy 
Peter Porcupine in the top of that pine- 
tree,” thought Jimmy. 

Goodness! The thought was 
scarcely out of his head when a fisher- 
man who had been lying down on the 
thick carpet of pine-needles looked 
right up at Peter’s perch and exclaimed : 

“Hello! there’s an old porcupine 
right up there in that pine-tree ! Let ’s 
try to shake him out.” 

“Dear me!” thought Jimmy. “I 
hoped they would n’t see Peter Porcu- 
pine up there, but I don’t really believe 
they can shake a high tree like that one.” 

And they could n’t. Try as hard as 
they might to shake that tree, all those 
men could do was to wiggle it a bit. 
And while Jimmy wasn’t exactly sure. 


PETER PORCUPINE 


117 

it seemed to him as though Peter Porcu- 
pine looked down at him and winked. 

“Oh, pshaw!” said one of the men at 
last, “we never can shake him out of that 
tree! But if we got a rope and tied it 
to the top, right under his perch, and 
then we got up on that hill just back of 
the pond and pulled on it, we could bend 
that pine-tree away back over our heads; 
and then if we suddenly let go, the tree 
would quickly snap back and throw old 
Mr. Porcupine away out into the pond. 
He probably needs a bath, anyway. 
Let ’s try it.” 

“Gee whillikens,” thought Jimmy, 
“but men are very in-gen-ious! And 
they don’t care what they do if only they 
have what they call fun.” 

So one of the men got a long rope and 
then a guide climbed the tree and fast- 
ened one end right under the limb where 


ii8 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Peter Porcupine sat. Then the guide 
came down again and all the men took 
hold of the other end of the rope and, 
going up the hill a way, they all pulled 
on it as hard as they could pull. 

Then very slowly the tree began to 
bend back until the top of it was almost 
over the men’s heads. 

“Gracious!” thought Jimmy. “I 
wonder if Peter Porcupine knows what 
they are trying to do. I hope he hangs 
on good and tight.” 

Just then one of the men shouted, 
“Let her go!” and snap! went the tree, 
back to its old position. 

The force of that snap was almost too 
much for Peter Porcupine, although he 
dug his long claws into the bark as hard 
as he could and held on for dear life. 

But his hind feet just could n’t stand 
the strain. They had to let go and he 





Fastened one end right under the limb where Peter Porcu- 
pine sat 





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PETER PORCUPINE 121 

straightened out in the air so that his 
body looked just like a flag, when it flies 
out straight from a flag-pole in a strong 
breeze. 

But Peter Porcupine never lost hope 
and he did the very best he could in the 
circumstances. 

He clung all the harder with his front 
claws, for he was resolved never, never 
to let them throw him out into that lake. 

Peter can swim, but he just made up 
his mind he would n’t take a bath that 
morning unless he had to. 

Then, as the top of the tree stopped 
waving, he managed to grab hold again 
with his hind feet and there he clung as 
before, sorely shaken, but tri-um-phant. 

Jimmy Bunn, in his hiding-place 
among the bushes, felt just like clapping 
his hands and shouting, “Good! good! 
good for you, Peter Porcupine!” but 


122 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

of course he knew better than to do it. 

However, those men were not the least 
bit discouraged. 

They had seen how near they had 
come to giving Peter a bath and were 
going to try it again. This time, in or- 
der to be sure, they resolved to bend the 
tree over much farther, before letting 
go. 

So they seized the rope again and then 
all together, with every bit of strength 
they had, they pulled that pine-tree over 
until it actually began to crack. 

And just then — just as Peter Porcu- 
pine was right above them — one of the 
big roots of the tree snapped off short 
and down came Peter Porcupine, tree 
and all, right on top of their heads. 

My, how they yelled and fell all over 
themselves and scrambled around! 
Nobody was hurt, but the branches 


PETER PORCUPINE 


123 

scratched their faces and hands and old 
Peter Porcupine got such a shaking up 
that the air was just full of his long, 
sharp, needle-like quills. 

And some of those quills stuck in the 
men’s hair and some in their arms and 
hands, so that they roared with pain. 
And while all this was going on Peter 
Porcupine decided that he had stayed 
around those parts too long anyway, so 
off he skipped into the bushes and dis- 
appeared. 

And Jimmy Bunn thought it was time 
for him to disappear, too. 

Perhaps he suddenly remembered 
those things his mother wanted him to do 
at home. 

Anyway, that ’s where he went, just 
as fast as his legs could carry him. 


JIMMY BUNN MEETS 
GREENY THE FROG 


H ave I ever told you the story — 
no of course I never have, but I 
will — of how Jimmy Bunn first got 
acquainted with Greeny the frog and 
how Greeny helped him? 

Well, it was this way. 

You see, it had n’t rained for a very, 
very long while, and the little brook 
where Jimmy usually drank was all dried 
up. 

And the water in the Big Pond, too, 
was so low that you could n’t get a drink 
there without getting your feet all 
muddy. 

Rabbits, you know, very, very seldom 
drink, anyway, but once in a while they 
get thirsty. 


124 


GREENY THE FROG 


125 

You know how you get thirsty, some- 
times, right after you go to bed, and call 
for Mother to bring you in a glass of 
water? Yes, of course you do. 

Well one very hot day Jimmy Bunn 
got thirsty and he crept out of his hole to 
look for a drink. 

Now, near by — in fact, right in front 
of Farmer Johnson’s barn — was a deep 
well. 

Jimmy Bunn knew it was a well be- 
cause he had often seen Farmer Johnson 
draw water out of it for his cows. And 
Farmer Johnson always left the wooden 
bucket hanging right over the well so 
he could lower it with a long chain, one 
end of which was tied to the bucket and 
the other end wound around a big, long 
handle. 

When Farmer Johnson dropped the 
bucket into the well it would go down. 


126 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

down, down, and the handle would turn 
round and round and round, faster and 
faster, so fast you could hardly see it 
turn at all. 

Then the bucket would hit the water 
away down in the well, ker-splash! and 
then Farmer Johnson would slowly 
wind up the handle and by and by up 
would come the bucket full of cold, clear 
water. 

Almost always there was at least a lit- 
tle water left in that big bucket, so Jimmy 
Bunn hopped over to in-ves-ti-gate. 
That ’s a long word, is n’t it? That is 
because it means to try to find out about 
things. 

Now, old Mr. Wolf happened to be 
out, too, that morning, and he saw 
Jimmy Bunn walking up to the well. 
And so he smiled to himself and trotted 
right up behind him, walking on the tip- 


GREENY THE FROG 127 

top of his toes so as not to make the least 
bit of noise. 

Goodness! how carefully old Mr. 
Wolf did walk! Nobody, not even 
Furry Fox or Farmer Johnson’s white 
cat, could walk more softly than did Mr. 
Wolf that morning. He just didn’t 
make any noise at all. 

Jimmy Bunn never heard him — no 
siree, he did n’t, even if his pink-lined 
ears did stick right up straight in the air. 

Honestly and truly, Jimmy Bunn 
was n’t even thinking about Mr. Wolf. 

Now, very early that morning, right 
after Yellow Legs, the big white rooster, 
had begun to crow, Mrs. Farmer John- 
son had taken her shiny milk-pans to the 
well to rinse them out and she had left 
them there to dry in the sun. 

And the first thing Jimmy Bunn knew 
he looked right at one of those shiny 


128 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

pans and saw his own re-flec-tion, just as 
you see your face when you look in the 
mirror, in the morning, to comb your 
hair. 

And that was n’t all Jimmy saw in that 
shiny milk-pan — no indeed ! 

For, as he looked at himself, his heart 
gave a great big thump, and then almost 
stopped beating, because right there in 
that shiny pan he saw old Mr. Wolf’s 
re-flec-tion too. 

Goodness, gracious, but Jimmy Bunn 
thought he was caught! Because Mr. 
Wolf was just about an inch behind him. 

Still, you know, Jimmy never gives up 
— no indeed! 

It is never wise to give up a thing — 
that is, to give up a good thing — when 
once you have started on it. So just as 
Mr. Wolf jumped, Jimmy jumped. He 
really had no idea where he was going to 


GREENY THE FROG 


129 

jump and I ’ll be jiggered if he did n’t 
land right ker-splash! in the middle of 
that bucket. 

And the water in it splashed right into 
Mr. Wolf’s eyes and made him shut them 
tight so he could n’t, for a second or two, 
see a thing. 

And then suddenly the bucket with 
Jimmy in it began to run down, down, 
down into the well, faster and faster and 
faster. 

And the handle with which Farmer 
Johnson used to wind it up, began to 
turn faster and faster and faster, too. 

Yes indeed, it turned as fast as any- 
thing and it struck Mr. Wolf right under 
his ear — bang ! — and knocked him down 
and made him see stars, so that he ran 
back into the woods and howled very 
loud. In fact, he was so blinded by the 
water and had been hit so hard by that 


130 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

old handle, that he hadn’t ever seen 
where Jimmy had gone. 

Poor Jimmy was dreadfully fright- 
ened. He did n’t know what was going 
to happen and all of a sudden — splash! 
— the bucket struck the water in the bot- 
tom of the old well. 

^ The bucket sank into the water right 
up to the edge and Jimmy sat in the cold 
water right up to his neck, with his paws 
on the rim. 

As soon as he got his breath he looked 
up, and there, way, way above him, was 
a small round patch of blue sky and that 
was all he could see. 

It was pretty dark at the bottom of the 
well, but after a while Jimmy found he 
could see the water and a lot of stones. 
And just then he heard somebody give a 
sort of a funny croaking laugh and say, 
“Ker-chug! Ker-chug!” 


GREENY THE FROG 131 

Jimmy looked around and there on a 
stone at the side of the well, near the 
water, he saw two round friendly eyes 
and a wide mouth and a big head. 

It was Greeny the frog. 

“My goodness!” said Jimmy. “I 
did n’t know you lived down here. It 
is n’t a very dry house, is it?” 

“No,” said Greeny, “it is n’t, but I like 
it here. There are good things to eat 
and no bad boys to throw stones at 
me.” 

“I don’t believe I ’d like it,” said 
Jimmy, shivering. “I wish I were back 
in my clover patch. Mister Wolf 
chased me in here. How shall I ever, 
ever get back?” 

“Don’t worry,” replied Greeny. 
“You sit right there; you won’t freeze. 
By and by some one will come after 
water and then they’ll pull you right up 


132 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 
again. I ride up, myself, sometimes, to 
see my friends.” 

“But how do you ever get back 
again?” asked Jimmy. 

Greeny smiled. 

“How did you just get down here?” 
he said. “Well, I come down the same 
way when Farmer Johnson is n’t look- 
ing. One day I fell down all the 
way by myself and nearly broke my 
neck.” 

“Is Mrs. Greeny here, too?” asked 
Jimmy Bunn, wonderingly? 

“Yes,” said Greeny, “she ’s down un- 
der the water there now, looking after 
Taddy and his sisters. We are all of us 
tadpoles at first, you know.” 

“What are tadpoles?” asked Jimmy 
Bunn, shivering. 

“Why, don’t you know?” said Greeny. 
“They are really little frogs with long 


GREENY THE FROG 


133 

wiggly tails. It does n’t seem to me you 
know very much.” 

“Well, I didn’t know that,” said 
Jimmy. “Where do their tails go to 
when they grow up? Yom have n’t any 
tail.” 

“Of course not,” replied Greeny. 
“Taddies’ tails begin to grow shorter and 
shorter as they get older, and by and by 
they are all gone. You have n’t much 
of a tail yourself, you know. But 
maybe your tail was longer when you 
were little.” 

“Maybe it was,” replied Jimmy. 
“Anyway, I don’t remember about it. 
Do you suppose Farmer Johnson will 
come for water soon? It ’s very damp 
down here. I wonder if I could climb 
out by myself.” 

“I would n’t advise you to try it,” said 
Greeny. “Those stones are very slip- 


134 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 
pery. You just be patient. Patience, 
you know, is a virtue.” 

“What ’s a virtue?” asked Jimmy. 

“Virtue,” said Greeny, “is something 
good.” 

“Good to eat?” asked Jimmy, who 
thought about things to eat rather 
oftener than he should. 

“No, indeed,” replied Greeny. 
“Virtue means being honest, or thought- 
ful, or kind, or truthful, beside a lot 
more things. You get your mother to 
tell you about it sometime ; and ask her, 
too, if she ever heard something about 
truth being found at the bottom of a 
well.” 

“I ’ll try to remember,” said Jimmy. 
And just at that moment the chain gave 
a rattle and the bucket began to tip. 

“Mercy on us!” groaned Jimmy. 
“What ’s that?” 


GREENY THE FROG 


135 


“That ’s probably Farmer Johnson 
after water,” replied Greeny. “Hold 
on tight. I think you ’re going to have 
another ride.” 

So Jimmy held on hard and then the 
bucket, with Jimmy in it, began to rise, 
up, up, up. 

He leaned over the side and looked 
down. “Good-by, Greeny,” he said. 
“I ’ll try to remember all you ’ve told 
me. Good-by.” 

“Good luck to you" replied Greeny 
and splash! he dived off his rock and dis- 
appeared. 

Up, up, up went Jimmy, very steadily 
out of the darkness into the clear light 
above. 

He looked down once and he thought 
he could see Greeny looking up at him 
with his bright eyes. 

Up, up, up, and presently a little ray 


136 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

of warm sunshine shot across the bucket 
and safe, but dripping wet, Jimmy at 
last found himself on the edge of the old 
well. 

All this time, while Farmer Johnson 
had been winding up the bucket, he had 
been talking to his wife, who had come 
after her milk-pans, and so he hadn’t 
looked at the bucket coming up at all, 
although it seemed to him to be extra 
heavy that morning. 

Then, as it landed on the edge of the 
well, he heard all of a sudden a swish 
and a bump, and a spray of clear, cold 
water flew, all over him. 

He wiped his eyes and looked down in 
amazement to see a very wet and terribly 
scared white bunny give another mighty 
leap from the old well platform and run 
off as fast as anything, across the grass. 

“Je-ru-sa-lem!” exclaimed Farmer 



“Je-ru-sa-lem !” 




GREENY THE FROG 


139 


Johnson to his wife. “Did you see that 
rabbit? I must have pulled him up out 
of the well in the bucket. How in the 
world he ever got down in that well beats 
me.” 

And yet, if Farmer Johnson had only 
known it, there was a wise old green 
frog at the bottom, who, if he had wanted 
to, could have told him the whole story. 


JIMMY BUNN AND THE 
TORTOISE 

I T is very, very quiet over on the far- 
ther shore of the Big Pond. 

The trees come right down to the 
water’s edge and on still, clear days it 
looks just as though they were growing 
upside down in the water. 

When the wind blows, the little waves 
go lap, lap, lap against the stones and 
there are big, flat, green, round lily-pads 
floating there. 

Once in a while there is a tiny ripple 
among the pads and a fat green frog 
pokes his nose to the surface and watches 
you with big, goggly eyes. 

Then there is an old black log near 


140 


THE TORTOISE 


141 

the shore and when the sun is shining 
brightly you can see Mr. and Mrs. 
Teddy Turtle and the whole family of 
little turtles resting on it. 

The shore of the Big Pond is Jimmie’s 
favorite place and he knows nearly all of 
the folks who live there, including Mr. 
Crawley Snake, who spends most of his 
time there hunting for bugs and very lit- 
tle fishes, because Crawley Snake is a 
fine swimmer. 

It is very cool there, too, on a hot sum- 
mer day, and Jimmy likes to take his 
lunch and be gone all the morning there, 
watching his friends and looking for his 
favorite bunches of clover with which 
to top off his meal. 

On this particular morning Jimmy 
had got there early and was right down 
by the water’s edge, when he opened his 
eyes in amazement. 


142 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

There, half-way out of the water, was 
the very biggest turtle that he had ever 
seen. 

Jimmy was n’t sure at first that it was 
a turtle, it was so tre-men-dous. 

Honestly, it was nearly as big as the 
round table in your living-room that the 
lamp sits on. 

Its head looked like an enormous but- 
ternut, and its nose turned right up at 
the end, a good deal like the tip of a cow’s 
horn, and its tail looked like the tip of 
Crawley Snake’s tail. 

“Mercy on us!” thought Jimmy; “this 
is certainly the king of turtles.” 

“Good morning,” said the giant at 
last. “You are Jimmy Bunn, are n’t 
you?” 

Jimmy nodded in a friendly manner. 
“Yes, I am,” he replied. “Do you min d 
telling me your name?” 



Mercy on us!” thought Jimmy, “this is certainly the king of 

turtles” 










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THE TORTOISE 


HS 


“No indeed,” said the stranger, “I am 
Mr. Thomas Tortoise.” 

“Crickity!” exclaimed Jimmy. “I 
thought you were a turtle.” 

“Well, in a way, I am,” went on 
Thomas Tortoise, “but I ’m different for 
all that. Don’t you see how high the 
middle of my back is?” 

Sure enough, his back was humped on 
top, like pictures of camels Jimmy had 
seen at school. 

“I ’m different, too, in other ways that 
I have n’t time to explain,” went on Mr. 
Tortoise. “How old do you think I 
am?” 

“Gracious!” replied Jimmy, looking 
at his big shell, “I guess you must be ten 
years old.” 

“Ten!” said Thomas, scornfully. “I 
reckon I am. If I live till the fall, and I 
certainly expect to, I shall be a hundred.” 


146 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

“A hundred!” gasped Jimmy, in 
amazement. ‘‘It does n’t seem pos- 
sible.” 

“Well, it is,” said Thomas. “I can 
remember when most of these trees here 
were as small as weeds and Farmer 
Johnson was a baby.” 

Jimmy sat down and pinched himself 
to see if he was awake. He just 
could n’t understand it. 

“Do you live in the water?” he asked 
at last. 

“No,” replied Thomas Tortoise, “I 
don’t, although I can swim as well as 
anybody. I live mostly on the land.” 

“I shouldn’t think you could travel 
very fast,” said Jimmy, looking at his 
friend’s short legs. “It must take you a 
long while to get anywhere. I can run 
like anything, myself.” 

Mr. Thomas Tortoise smiled induj- 


THE TORTOISE 


147 


gently and very slowly closed his eyes 
and opened them again. “So you think 
you can travel fast,” he went on. 
“Well, my great, great, great-grand- 
father once ran a famous race with one 
of your relatives and beat him. Badly, 
too. Have you never heard the story of 
the Hare and the Tortoise?” 

“No, I never have,” replied Jimmy, 
much astonished. “Tell me about it.” 

“Oh, it ’s too long to tell now,” said 
Thomas. “You ask your mother about 
it when you get home; she knows the 
story, I suppose.” 

“Where ’s your house?” said Jimmy, 
to conceal his disappointment, for he 
wanted very much to hear about the race. 

“I haven’t any,” replied Thomas. 
“My wife, Mrs. Tortoise, lays her eggs 
in the sun almost anywhere about here 
and they hatch out all by themselves. 


148 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Sometimes she lays hundreds of ’em.” 

“I kind of think he ’s spoofing me,” 
thought Jimmy, “for that ’s a pretty big 
story, all by itself.” But he did n’t speak 
his thoughts. Sometimes, you know, 
it ’s best to keep still when you are n’t 
sure of a thing, especially when you are 
with strangers. 

“Are n’t you cold in the winter?” he 
asked, to change the subject. 

“No indeed,” replied Thomas Tor- 
toise. “When it begins to get cold I 
bury myself away down deep in the mud 
and stay there till spring, fast asleep.” 

“What! and not eat anything?” ex- 
claimed Jimmy, who, as you know, is 
almost always thinking about his meals. 
“I should think you ’d starve to death.” 

“Nonsense!” said Thomas Tortoise. 
“I guess, after all, you don’t know very 
much,” he went on, rather impolitely. 


THE TORTOISE 149 

Jimmy thought. “What’s that over 
there?” 

Jimmy turned his head quickly and 
looked. 

Right by the edge of the woods and 
not very far away he saw something that 
looked black in the sunlight. 

At first Jimmy thought it was a log. 
Then it moved and Jimmie’s heart gave 
an awful thump, for there, creeping to- 
ward them very carefully, so that he 
might not make a sound, was old Mr. 
Wolf. 

He was so near that Jimmy knew he 
just never could get to his home in the 
hillside in time. 

What should he do? He was so 
frightened he could n’t think. 

“Oh, Thomas Tortoise,” he cried at 
last, “there comes Mr. Wolf! If you 
can run fast, as you told me your great, 


150 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

great-grandfather could, take me on 
your back and save me. Hurry! 
hurry!” 

Thomas Tortoise grinned and all at 
once he began to turn around in the 
other direction. 

“You get on my back quick ’s you 
can,” he said. 

Jimmy did n’t doubt Mr. Tortoise for 
one instant now. He gave one quick 
bound and scrambled on Thomas’s back 
and clung as best he could to that rather 
slippery surface. 

And then, to Jimmie’s great surprise, 
Mr. Tortoise pushed out his great, 
strong legs and walked right into the Big 
Pond. 

My, but Jimmy was scared! Of 
course he was terribly afraid of Mr. 
Wolf, but he was also terribly afraid of 
the water and here he was being carried 


THE TORTOISE 


151 

right out toward the middle of the Big 
Pond. 

Mr. Wolf was coming up with great 
leaps. He got to the edge of the water 
and came right in after them; right up 
to his stomach, snapping his jaws and 
splashing the water all over poor Jimmy. 

But those mighty legs and huge claw 
feet of Thomas Tortoise were churning 
the water into foam just like the paddle- 
wheels of a steamer and he was going so 
fast that Jimmy almost believed that 
story Mr. Tortoise had told him about 
the race. 

As for old Mr. Wolf, he took another 
look and hesitated. He did n’t like the 
water, either, and he saw that Mr. Tor- 
toise knew a whole lot more about swim- 
uing than he did and could move a whole 
lot faster in the water than he could. 

So he backed out, all wet and mad as 


152 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

he could be, and very much disap- 
pointed, for he had thought he was going 
to dine off of a fat bunny that day, for 
sure. 

He looked at Jimmy and Mr. Tor- 
toise, who by now were far out toward 
the middle of the pond, and he started 
to run around it. But he saw that, fast 
as he could run, he would be too late to 
catch them. 

As for Jimmy, just as soon as he found 
that he had escaped Mr. Wolf and that 
Thomas Tortoise’s high back was as dry 
as his own bed, he really began to enjoy 
his sail. 

He actually stood up straight on his 
hind legs and looked all around. He 
hoped at least some of his friends would 
see him. Certainly he felt very, very 
proud, now that all danger was surely 
pasti 


THE TORTOISE 


IS3 

“It ’s nice out here, is n’t it?” said 
Thomas Tortoise, presently. 

“It ’s perfectly wonderful,” said 
Jimmy, looking back at old Mr. Wolf. 
“Some day I ’m going to learn to swim 
myself.” 

“Everybody ought to learn to do that,” 
replied Thomas Tortoise, wisely. “One 
never knows when it will come in very 
handy.” 

The water in the Big Pond was very 
smooth that day and Mr. Thomas Tor- 
toise swam carefully and steadily and it 
was n’t very long before they reached 
the beach on the other side and Thomas 
crept up to where it was nice and dry and 
hard. 

Jimmy jumped off. “Mr. Tortoise,” 
he said, gratefully, “how I am ever going 
to thank you enough, I don’t know. 
You certainly saved my life.” And 


154 jimmy BUNN STORIES 

then he had a very generous thought. 

He looked right into Thomas Tor- 
toise’s eyes and said : 

“Honestly and truly, I really did n’t 
believe at first that story you told me 
about your great, great, great-grand- 
father winning that race, but I do be- 
lieve it now, and I ’m going to ask my 
mother to tell me all about it to-night 
before I go to bed.” 


THE ADVENTURE OF CONNIE 
COON 


D O you remember my telling you 
about Jimmy Bunn having met 
Connie Coon, and how Connie hid in 
the tree and came near being caught by 
the hunters and their dog? 

Many times since then Jimmy had 
thought about Connie and had looked 
for him everywhere, but he had never 
even caught a glimpse of him. 

Then one beautiful autumn after- 
noon, while Jimmy was walking near 
the shore of the Big Pond, he heard a 
voice exclaim: 

“Hello, Jimmy Bunn ! How are you 
this afternoon?” 


I5S 


156 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

Jimmy looked all about, but he 
could n’t see a soul. 

And then he heard somebody laugh 
and say, “Why don’t you look upf” and 
Jimmy, gazing into the air, looked right 
into the eyes of Connie Coon. He was 
stretched out on the limb of an old oak- 
tree right over Jimmy’s head. 

“Why, Connie Coon! How do you 
do! Come on down,” said Jimmy, cor- 
dially. 

“Ha, ha !” replied Connie, with a grin, 
“that ’s what Davy Crockett once said to 
one of my ancestors.” And he began 
to back down the trunk of the tree. 

“Who ’s Davy Crockett?” asked 
Jimmy. “And what are ancestors?” 

“You ask your father who Davy 
Crockett was,” said Connie Coon. “As 
for ancestors, they are your relations who 
lived very, very long ago — hundreds of 


CONNIE COON 


IS7 

years, maybe. You don’t suppose, do 
you, that your father and mother were 
the first rabbits ever born?” 

“I can remember Grandfather Rab- 
bit,” said Jimmy, not wishing to appear 
ignorant. “Grandmother Rabbit was 
shot by a hunter before I was born.” 

“Hunters do a great deal of harm,” 
replied Connie Coon, as he reached the 
ground and sat down on the grass. “I 
suppose I know more about hunters and 
their ways than everybody else in these 
woods put together. And that reminds 
me — where do you think I ’ve been?” 

“I ’ve no idea,” replied Jimmy. “But 
you ’ve been gone a long, long time.” 

“You couldn’t in a thousand years 
guess where I ’ve been,” went on Connie 
Coon. “Nobody could guess to save 
his life. I ’ve been in a menagerie.” 

“Gracious!” said Jimmy Bunn. “Do 


158 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

you mean one of those places where 
there are lots of different animals in 
cages?” he continued breathlessly. 

“Right-o,” said Connie. “That’s ex- 
actly where I ’ve been, but, thank good- 
ness, I ’ve got away at last. Look at my 
coat, all frazzled to pieces, and my claws 
grown so long I can hardly climb a tree. 
It ’s enough to make one cry his eyes out. 
You see there was nothing to do in that 
menagerie at all. What a terrible smell 
there was, too ! 

“My, but it ’s nice to breathe fine fresh 
air again! The trouble is that nobody 
appreciates his blessings till he loses 
them. You know we ‘never miss the 
water till the well runs dry.’ ” 

“Tell me all about your adventures,” 
begged Jimmy, excitedly. “Seems as 
though I just could n’t wait a minute.” 

“Well,” said Connie, stopping a mo- 







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CONNIE COON 


i6i 

ment to lick a sore place on one of his 
front paws, where the fur was all rubbed 
off, “you see it was this way : 

“One night, while out hunting, I very 
foolishly walked right into the open door 
of a hunter’s cabin. I was very hungry, 
and besides I was curious to see what it 
looked like inside. Too much curiosity 
sometimes gets one into a lot of trouble, 
does n’t it?” 

“It certainly does,” said Jimmy, re- 
membering that adventure of his when 
he had journeyed to the Green Hill. 

“Yes,” continued Connie, “I walked 
right in at that door and before you 
could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ somebody 
threw a blanket over my head and rolled 
me up into a ball. 

“I bit and clawed, I can tell you, but 
it didn’t do any good and then, who- 
ever it was that had caught me dumped 


i 62 jimmy BUNN STORIES 

me right out into a barrel and put a 
board across the top. 

“Then I heard some one say, ‘There! 
you will come visiting without an invita- 
tion, will you?’ 

“Soon after that I heard another 
hunter come in and the first man said, 
‘Say, John, guess what I ’ve got in that 
barrel.’ 

“ ‘Oh, onions,’ said the man named 
John. 

“‘Onions nothing!’ replied the first 
hunter. ‘I ’ve caught a live coon.’ 
And then he shoved the board over a lit- 
tle and they both looked in at me. 

“ ‘He walked right in at that door,’ 
said the first man, ‘just as I was making 
my bed and, having the blanket in my 
hands, I threw it right over him. I 
reckon I ’ll kill him in the morning.’ ” 

“Gee-whillikins !” exclaimed Jimmy 


CONNIE COON 


163 

Bunn, opening both eyes very wide. “I 
should think that would have frightened 
you to death.” 

“Well, it did scare me some,” admitted 
Connie, “although, of course, I did n’t 
intend that they should kill me without 
my putting up a good fight. But at that 
the other man said, ‘Oh, I would n’t do 
that. Coon skin are not much good in 
the summer. They are not long and 
thick enough.’ ” 

“Is your coat really short and thin in 
summer?” interrupted Jimmy Bunn. 

“Yes, I ’ll have to admit it is,” replied 
Connie, “but it gets long and thick and 
silky in the winter, because then I need it 
that way to keep out the cold. Hunters 
who want my coat don’t bother me any 
in the summer. 

“Well, anyway, the second man kept 
right on and said, ‘No, I would n’t kill 


i 64 jimmy BUNN STORIES 

him. Give him to me and I ’ll put him 
in a cage in the park.’ So, to make a 
long story short, they shook me right out 
of that barrel, head first, into a potato- 
bag. But I had the satisfaction of giv- 
ing one of them a good bite before they 
finally tied me up.” 

“Could n’t you claw a hole in the bag 
in the night and get out?” asked Jimmy. 

“No,” answered Connie, “because 
they put me right back into the barrel, 
bag and all. 

“Then the next morning I was carried 
out into a road and then I had my first 
ride in an automobile.” 

“A real automobile?” asked Jimmy, 
staring with all his eyes. 

“Certainly,” replied Connie Coon. 
“It was a Flivver automobile, because 
that ’s what the man called it, a Flivver.” 

“Was it comfortable?” asked Jimmy. 


CONNIE COON 


165 

“Well, it bumped a good deal,” re- 
plied Connie, “and I think the bumping 
must have hurt it, for it squeaked awfully 
each time it bumped. 

“Then after a long, long time, we 
came to a railroad. Of course I 
could n’t see anything, but I heard a lot 
of choo-chooing and then I was put on 
the train and I was so tired by that time 
that I went sound asleep. 

“When I woke up I had another ride, 
this time in a wagon — I could hear the 
horse trot — and then I was shaken out 
into a cage. 

“I was very thirsty, and hungry too, 
and a man came along and put a dish of 
water into the cage and an ear of sweet 
corn. 

“I hated to eat with somebody looking 
at me, but I just could n’t help it; I was 
almost starved. 


i66 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

“Then I looked around and — what do 
you think? There was a cage full of 
monkeys right in front of me and beside 
that was a big spotted animal with small 
legs and a neck that reached up as high 
as Farmer Johnson’s big haystack.” 

“Oh, goodness!” said Jimmy. “I ’ve 
never heard of such a thing in all my life. 
I don’t wish to be impolite, but that ’s a 
very hard story to believe, Connie. 
Will you please say, ‘honest and true,’ 
to that and cross your throat?” 

So Connie Coon crossed his throat 
and said: “Honest and true, that animal’s 
neck was as high as Farmer Johnson’s 
haystack.” 

Jimmy Bunn drew a long breath. 
Certainly Connie Coon had seen some 
strange sights — there could be no mis- 
take about that. 

“There were many other queer ani- 


CONNIE COON 167 

mals there,” continued Connie, “and 
some queer birds, too. I am sure they 
were birds. 

“One of the birds had legs so long 
that he could have stood under an apple 
tree and picked the apples right off with 
his bill. He had feathers on him, so 
I ’m sure he was a bird, but I never saw 
him do any flying. He just walked 
around all day.” 

Jimmy Bunn had never heard of such 
wonders before. 

He wrinkled his pink nose and just 
stared and stared and stared at Connie 
Coon. 

He was so amazed he could n’t even 
think to ask another question. That is 
to say, he could n’t ask one right that 
minute. 

“But the animals and birds were not 
the funniest things there,” went on Con- 


i68 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

nie. “The funniest things were the 
people I saw. 

“They did n’t seem to have any sense. 

“Why, they gave me chewing-gum 
and pickles and peppermints to eat — 
threw them at me, in fact. And one 
man said I was a fox, and a boy told his 
mother I was Mr. Wolf and that I ate 
little children, and a big policeman had 
the nerve to say I was a skunk. 

“Those people were so foolish I just 
turned my back on them and pretended 
I was asleep.” 

Just at that moment Jimmy had heard 
a faint splash. He glanced behind him 
and there, coming across a bend in the 
big Pond was a boat with two men in it. 

One of them was rowing and the other 
had a gun across his knees. 

Jimmy quickly turned to warn Connie 
Coon about that man with the gun. 


CONNIE COON 


169 

But Connie’s ears had caught the sound 
of that faint splash just as quickly as had 
Jimmy Bunn’s, even if his ears were a 
good deal smaller than Jimmy’s. 

So w^hen Jimmy Bunn turned to warn 
him about those men and the boat, there 
was nobody there. Connie Coon had 
vanished. 

“Dear me!’’ thought Jimmy Bunn, as 
he silently hopped away into the bushes. 
“Dear me! and he left me just as I was 
going to ask him the most importantest 
question of all. 

“I wonder if I shall ever see him 


again. 


THE BURNING OP FARMER 
JOHNSON’S HAYSTACK 

HIS is the story of how Farmer 



A Johnson’s big haystack caught fire 
and of the very strange adventure which 
befell Jimmy Bunn on that night. 

Nobody, not even Jimmy, really 
knows to this day just how that big hay- 
stack happened to burn up. 

Everybody had a different idea about 
it. 

Mrs. Connie Coon thought that per- 
haps her two children. Frisky and Ring 
Tail, had been playing near it with 
matches. She knew they sometimes did 
disobey her and play with matches, al- 
though she had told them over and over 
again not to do it. 


iro 


JOHNSON’S HAYSTACK 171 

Farmer Johnson thought that his hired 
man might have fallen asleep near the 
big haystack (sometimes he did, you 
know) and set it afire with his pipe. 

Teddy Turtle said he believed it was 
struck by lightning, but of course there 
was n’t any lightning that night (Teddy 
Turtle doesn’t know much, anyway), 
and Crawley Snake was sure that a fire- 
fly did it, because he said he frequently 
saw a lot of them over by the swamp near 
his house and they were very fiery-look- 
ing fireflies indeed. 

But Mrs. Connie Coon and Farmer 
Johnson and Teddy Turtle and Crawley 
Snake were all wrong about it. 

Now, you listen very carefully and I 
will tell you the truth about the matter. 

You see, Jimmy Bunn had made a kite. 

It was a great, big kite. In fact, it was 
a good deal bigger than Jimmy, even 


172 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

when he stood up on his hind legs. Yes, 
it was a great deal bigger. 

It was really a wonderful kite and 
Jimmy used to fly it from the top of the 
Sandy Hillside with a very long ball of 
twine. 

It would fly up so high that when the 
string was all let out you could hardly 
see it at all. And when the wind blew 
hard it used to pull on the string like 
everything, so that Jimmy had to dig his 
toes into the sand very deep to keep it 
from pulling him right up into the air. 

Why, the first time that Bright Eyes, 
the hawk, saw that big kite, he thought it 
was a giant eagle and he was so fright- 
ened that he flew away into the woods as 
fast as he could fly. 

Now, one evening, just as Jimmy 
Bunn was going to bed, he happened to 
see Farmer Johnson with a lantern in his 


JOHNSON’S HAYSTACK 173 

hand, coming in from milking his cows, 
and that lantern put an idea into Jimmy 
Bunn’s head. 

Said he to himself: “If I could only 
borrow that lantern and put it on the end 
of my kite’s tail and fly it at night, 
wouldn’t that be wonderful? 
Would n’t it be just great to see the light 
of that lantern shining like a big, bright 
star away up there in the sky?’’ 

I am afraid that when Jimmy spoke of 
“borrowing” that lantern he meant to 
take it without asking Farmer Johnson’s 
permission. And, you know you can’t 
really “borrow” a thing without first ask- 
ing the owner if he is willing. 

The more Jimmy thought about that 
lantern the more he wanted to try the 
plan, and at last he made up his mind 
that if he got the chance he would do it. 

After milking his cows Farmer John- 


174 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

son used always to blow out the flame 
and hang that lantern on a nail right out- 
side the barn-door. One night after he 
had done this and gone into the house, 
Jimmy Bunn got some matches out of his 
mother’s kitchen (which of course he 
shouldn’t have done) and taking his 
kite, he hopped over and grabbed the 
lantern right off of that nail and then he 
ran away up back on the top of the 
Sandy Hillside, just as high as he could 
go. 

It was very dark and nobody had seen 
him do it, so he sat down and tied the 
lantern right on the tip end of the big 
kite’s tail. 

Then he scratched a match and lit the 
wick inside. 

The flame of the match and the glow 
from the lantern made a good deal of 
light and that was a very unlucky thing 



Thinking of all the fun he was going to have 


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JOHNSON’S HAYSTACK 177 

for Jimmy, although he did n’t know it 
at the time. 

No, he did n’t. 

You see, he wasn’t thinking about 
anything except the fun he was going to 
have. 

Now, it happened that just at the time 
Jimmy lighted that lantern, Mr. Wolf, 
away off by the edge of the woods, was 
taking a look at things before starting 
out for his night’s hunting. 

And as he gazed about, he saw that 
flicker of light from Jimmy Bunn’s 
match and then he saw the white gleam 
of the lantern. 

At first he thought it was a great big 
firefly, but on second thought he knew 
no firefly could ever grow so big as that. 

Then he thought it might be a star. 
Yet he knew stars didn’t go moving 
about. He thought he really ought to 


178 JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

go over and find out what it was all 
about, so off he started. 

By this time Jimmy Bunn had got his 
kite flying splendidly, for the night wind 
was blowing strongly and as Mr. Wolf 
looked up, he saw that bright light go 
dancing right straight up in the air. 

“My goodness!” he thought, as he 
hurried along, “there is certainly some- 
thing very queer about all this I” 

Oh, but Jimmy Bunn was having one 
grand time! 

He had let out all the string and had 
wound the end around the middle of a 
big stick which he held in both hands 
(perhaps I ought to say “paws”) and his 
kite was pulling so hard that he had to 
lean away back and hang on for dear life 
to keep from being yanked right off the 
top of that hill. 

Then all of a sudden — right in the 


JOHNSON’S HAYSTACK 179 

middle of all this fun — he heard Mr. 
Wolf’s gruff voice saying: 

“Good evening Jimmy Bunn. I 
think it ’s pretty near my dinner-time.” 

Yes, it certainly was pretty nearly din- 
ner-time for Mr. Wolf. And there was 
his dinner standing right there in front 
of him — a fine, fat dinner, with long 
pink ears on its head. 

At the sound of Mr. Wolf’s voice, 
Jimmy was so terribly flabber-gasted that 
he nearly let go of his kite string. And 
when he looked down and saw Mr. Wolf 
standing right in front of him in the star- 
light — right close up to him, in fact — 
poor Jimmy nearly jumped out of his 
skin. 

“G-r-r-r!” went on Mr. Wolf, which 
was his way of greeting most of his 
friends. “G-r-r-r! you seem to be hav- 
ing a nice time of it and I really dislike 


i8o JIMMY BUNN STORIES 

to interrupt your enjoyment, but I Ve 
had nothing to eat all day and I don’t 
believe I can even wait for you to wind 
up that string.” And, then, feeling sure 
Jimmy Bunn could n’t possibly get 
away, he did n’t exactly spring, but 
walked fast right up the bank toward 
Jimmy. 

You see he was so certain Jimmy was 
going to be his dinner, that he sort of 
took his time about it. 

But all the same, just at the last second, 
he opened his mouth wide and gave a big 
jump. 

And then, with all his might, Jimmy 
jumped, too. Not backward, or side- 
ways, but right at Mr. Wolf himself. 

You see, Jimmy had been so scared he 
had n’t been able to think at all and I 
don’t believe he knew what he was doing 
when he jumped right at Mr. Wolf. 


JOHNSON’S HAYSTACK i8i 

It was really the kite that did it, for 
right then the night wind gave a very 
strong pull and, Jimmy having almost 
forgotten about the kite, it jerked him 
right up into the air over Mr. Wolf’s 
head. 

There never has been anybody more 
astonished than Mr. Wolf was when 
Jimmy Bunn sailed right up into the sky 
over his nose. 

He did make one great effort to grab 
him, but he only succeeded in just touch- 
ing the tip end of Jimmy’s tail and then 
before Mr. Wolf could turn around, 
Jimmy was gone. 

Yes, as sure as you are born, he flew 
right along over the ground, hanging to 
that stick as tight as he could hold. 

But, of course, he could n’t hold on 
long. He had to let go finally because 
his arms ached so and when he did, he 


i 82 jimmy BUNN STORIES 

landed right in a big bunch of soft grass 
and it did n’t hurt him one least little bit. 
Then he scrambled up and ran home 
lick-et-y-split and it was so dark at the 
bottom of the hill that Mr. Wolf never 
saw him at all. 

Oh, you want to know what became 
of the kite and the lantern? 

Why, I nearly forgot that, did n’t I? 

And I nearly forgot to tell you about 
Farmer Johnson’s big haystack, which 
was what I started out to tell you about 
in the first place. 

Well, after Jimmy had let go of the 
string, the big kite came down and so 
did the lantern and it broke all to pieces 
right in front of that big haystack of 
Farmer Johnson’s. 

And it set the haystack on fire and the 
light shone all around for miles and 
miles and miles, and it woke up all the 


JOHNSON’S HAYSTACK 183 

birds that had gone to sleep in the Deep 
Woods. 

Honestly, it did; and it came near to 
burning up Farmer Johnson’s barn, too. 
So you see how careful one has to be 
when there is fire about. 

As for Jimmy Bunn, why, unless some 
one reads him this story, I don’t believe 
he will ever know that he really did start 
that fire himself. 








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